Welcome to my nest everyone!
I welcome all comments, opinons, constructive criticism, and light hearted gossip.
The only rules: No question or comment is too small and if you disagree, state your case with respect and candor.
I’m here on earth to have fun and talk about “it”….so let me know what you want to discuss and let’s get to it!
I’m not an historian…or is it “a historian”? None-the-less I would like to take this opportunity to share a childhood memory of mine that involves what we thought was a chance meeting with the President at the time.
My sisters and I had this habit of chatting during mass each Sunday. We children would sit between our parents and Dad would rest his arm on the pew behind us, if we got too carried away with giggles or whisperings he would tap our heads….gently with his ring…to remind us to face forward, button our lips, and pay attention for you never knew, the possibility of learning something was always afoot.
One Sunday at the Morse Bluff Catholic Church, in the mid-1970s, we kids were gawking around the church before mass began, commenting on various things that little girls find amusing, and I remember, like it was yesterday, one of us innocently asking Mom; “Isn’t that President Ford sitting over there?” I imagine “Watergate” and President Ford’s recent, impromptu inauguration were hot topics in everyone’s house at the time so he must have been fresh on our minds for that reason. She shot back with the obligatory mom response of “What?!?” So we pointed…you know, without actually pointing….toward the unsuspecting man sitting behind us, over a little, and couple of rows back. Mom, nonchalantly looked back in the direction of our small fingers, made visual contact, snapped forward, and her face took on a grin that quickly lead to a stifled, though church-appropriate, laugh. She looked at Dad, leaned across us, whispered something to him and then, they both were laughing. We sat there, dumbfounded with our own “What?!?” expressions. They smiled throughout the next hour.
After the service, Mom couldn’t wait to go up and talk (bravely I remember thinking) to the 38th Presedient of our United States. Okay, so he actually turned out to be one of our neighbors: Mr. Leonard Kavan; a man of presidential stature in his own right, mistakenly identified as President Gerald Ford by three curious and creative young ladies. The grown ups had a big chuckle at our expense and that is something I personally loved to acheive as a child anyway, the hilarity was lost on no one.
This little archived file came to the forefront of my mind, the week between Christmas and the New Year, when I first heard the news of former President Ford’s passing. He was the first president of my memory, he was a man respected, he stepped up to the plate when called upon and did his best for our country, he was truly larger than life for myself and many others. I just wanted to take this moment to remember him in my own way.
—North Bend Eagle 10 Jan 2007
So far I’m learning lots about the history of this religious war we think we are going to win. The whole thing started in 1900 B.C.!!! What are we doing over there? That is the way they live…who does george think he is fooling? The book is confirming my opinions and that is always refreshing. I’ll keep reading.
Oh and there are those requirements for work such as “The Fred Factor” or one of hundreds by John Maxwell or Steven Covey….they remind me of diets: We all know what to do to get the results we want, it’s just doing it day in and day out that’s the problem. But, good for them….they are capitalizing on our inability to practice simple but obvious rules, just like the diet industry.
I pick one or the other up daily to keep the rhythm in my life with a little rhyme or verse…it keeps me sane.
For example:
Lending Out Books
You’re always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do is lend her your books. You think she’ll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn’t have the time
to read them, and she’s afraid if she sees you again
you’ll expect her to talk about them, and will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. you end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.
——-Hal Sirowitz
True story about the leper colonies in Hawaii. That was America’s doing only 150 years ago! They shipped these ill people, and those they thought were ill, out to a rock in the ocean, without food or shelter, to die. I have to stop and put it down for awhile because the idea of it disgusts me so. It’s difficult to believe this country would do such a thing and not only once but several times in the history of America. Disturbing, but it makes you realize that there is a reason we have a system to change laws….some should never be set in stone.