Mr. Goo teaches survival skills.

 

 

Snail posing 

 

His folks had forced Sam Snail to attend the class on snail safety, where posters covered the room:

“An Informed Snail is a Safe Snail!”       “It’s not dandruff, you idiot!  It’s salt!”

Source: Wikipedia

“A stupid snail becomes escargot!”

Mr. Goo, the oldest snail in the community, scanned the adolescent snails with his antennae.  “Listen up, you slimy slugs!”

The snails convulsed with laughter---the slug joke was an old one. Then all became quiet as the spectres of snails long gone before filled the room.

They whispered, “Grass is good.  Sidewalks are bad….” 

Then Mr. Goo shouted, “If you are ever besieged by a bunch of birds, then kiss your shells good-bye.”

Intervals of laughter and silence of doom broke up the rest of the day.  Finally, class was dismissed.

 

 

Mr. Goo watched them in silence, Poor dumb Molluscan Gastropods! Half of them won’t even make it home.

Some time ago, Delores (Under the Porch light) provided participants of the "Wednesday Words" with a variety of six words with which to play:  write prose, short fiction, non-fiction, poetry...Each week there was always a challenge.  This is a re-post of 2022, originally from 2018.
 

 Check with /river-driftingthroughlife.blogspot.com/, Elephant's story for other Wed. Word selections.

Klingons...what can be said about them?

 

 

                                             Air and Space Museum

In 1966, life as I knew it changed. 

 A script for "Star Trek" had been rejected by many production companies.  And then, Lucille Ball saw its potential, and Bob's-your-uncle.  It gave me a vision of something that would happen sometime, maybe while my great-great-grand-children were still alive.

Klingons on the Starboard Bow

                                                Carole Burnett took on James T. Kirk

YouTube world has such amazing offerings.

A series knows it has arrived when parodies are made about the characters. Rather than insulting the show, these showed how famous this and the actors would become. Who knew?  I was 14 at the time; anything and everything seemed possible.

 

 

Now?  Lots of things are possible, but not necessarily good. Wait and see.

Our LIneage is Holy.

 

The single touch

 

After spending/wasting a good part of the afternoon, the truth has emerged.  GENI© has wandered through the family line of my mother’s grand-mother, Sarah Ann.  Twisting and turning, I followed only the male line for ease of surnames, there it was:

I am related to God Almighty!  God Almighty is my 93rd Great-Grandmother!

Sarah Ann introduced some great genes into the humble family line, as her husband Elisha’s information dead-ends when he was orphaned with his brother in Ohio. 

Her ancestors came from England = from Wales= from being the King of the Druids Wales = from Italy = from land of the Hebrews.  The researcher(s) made some phenomenal leaps to some conclusions that announced Adam had a daughter (!) who started the whole march of lineage.

While I could be rejoicing here, there are few things I know already.

I am a Child of God without following a bloodline; the only bloodline I follow is Christ’s blood. And I also know that the jump from Sarah Anna involves some crazy speculation.  God Almighty is not my 93^rd grandmother.

I will take the part about:

Brân “Fendigaid” (the Blessed) ap Llur Lieddiarth, Saint, Brenin of Silures

Or, Cerwyd ap Crydon, King of the Druids and Cornwall

Or, Tros, King of Troy.

P.S. My mother always told me that “Grammy” Sarah Ann had been kidnapped and raised by Gypsies and had the gift of second sight.  People came to her to read tea leaves.  Also, I wonder what tracing through the matriarchal lines would show me?

Hatfield House, where Elizabeth was "detained"

Spirit in the Sky

 

Source

Towers as dust rises

Pillars of creation

Brilliant light consumes

Divided and torn

Infants emerge

Fire explodes

Streams of gas

Towering peaks

Arrows sail

  

This is a re-post from 2016. "Dragon" has landed at the Space Station, a new crew off loaded.  Now the two abandoned station crew will be carried home by this unique space craft. Poor people! They have been there for 8 months and have had to put up with each other all that time Could you do it? Could you get stuck somewhere and cannot be rescued for months? I don't know.  Maybe..  

 

The Spirit in the Sky, Norman Greenbaum, 1970

Sunshine's view of Grandpa

 

 

2014, Grandpa with Benjamin (2 yrs. old)  He loves reading to his grandkids.

“Grandma, I don’t know how to say this.”

 

Sunshine, just go ahead and say it.

“I mean, I love Grandpa, but…

Why did you marry him?”

                                    

                                      I glanced over at

                                            My husband

December 1972, our wedding day

nearly asleep in the rocker. 

His face was flushed

from the heat,

and his graying hair 

looked almost silver.

 

Sunshine looked at him, long

and hard.  “He has a big tummy.”

Why, yes, Grandpa is fat.

“Oh, Grandma!  Mommy said 

we can’t say that

he is fat!”

 

 

 

It’s okay, he already knows it.

It came to me that Sunshine had never known us

 as we were, when we fell in love.

                 So I told her how young we were, how his hair

Just out of college.  So young.

was black and curly, and he was thin then.

I told her how my hair was so long that

it came nearly to my waist.

I told her how we met and then

 we…got married.

Oh, the day of hot-pants!

Sunshine looked back and forth at us.

Long and hard.  

 She gave up. 

“Okay, Grandma. If you say so."

 

Oh, Bill.

 

He was an impetuous youth in the wrong year born.

 

Where others saw books and boards from a desk,

He saw

An open plain from his saddle on a horse.

Feet made for boots,

Hands made for ropes.

In a different time, another place, my brother

Would have been a cowboy.

  This photo is Bill with his horse, Sonny, a 2 yr. old quarter horse. Fast, I was lucky to be alive after riding it one time only.

The bold underlined words were prompts from Delores who gifted us with enigmatic phrases that fit well with my thoughts and mood.  
Thank you, Delores.

Delores set up a great series "Wednesday Words", encouraging writers. She 

handed off the baton to other bloggers to submit other crazy words. Please check these sites:

River  and Elephant's Child

I encourage you to join in.  
Please.  
Share your own mood and thoughts.

  This was written but not posted in 2022.

Nebo, my home town

 

 

Hebo High School, 1917?

The irony of Nebo, Illinois, is that while I lived there, I could not wait to leave it.  Now I think about those days, get a wallop of nostalgia, and wish I knew more about the place left behind.

It began as a true log cabin town, growing with each new settler with names of Shaw, Ross, Franklin, and many more.  With each new family the settlement became a township.

  When I returned for visits over the years, the town had shrunk just a little bit more and the people I knew had died. Their children left--just as I had--and there were empty houses, and people I didn’t know.

            Basically this precious little town could never compare to its former self. 

 

It saddens me that others won't know what Nebo had been.

Here are photos of back then :

Peck house on Pearl-Nebo road

C.R. Rodgers' Trans Continental trip for
to promote Vin Fizz soda

 

 

 The community flooded to the events like this. Life was personal at this time of Nebo's existence.

Painted by in-mate at nearby prison

Nebo High School Gym--all that remains
of the High School

Country School Students

 Nebo in Wales, with me and my glorious hair 1984

 

Mt. Nebo, where Moses is buried

Fred in the coffee shop

Heavy silence fell when an elderly man with a cane came in to buy a coffee.  The customers in Rick’s Coffee remembered him well.  Oh yes, they remembered him.

He called himself “Fred”, but no one ever knew his true identity.  An air of inaccessibility surrounded him, which was just the way Fred liked it.  All that anyone knew was that Fred was superb at tracking. Did something like that in his military days. Animals or people, Fred was on their trail while foot prints were still wet.

Some said Fred could find a mosquito hiding in a free standing rotting tree, during a raging sand storm. Yup. Fred was a different man then. Now he was a man with a cane

 

When “Fred” left, walking slowly with his cane, all exhaled. They had not wanted a repeat of the last time he came for coffee. It was horrific.

No.  They did not want that to happen again, but it would. 

 

 

The italicized underlined Wednesday words are courtesy of River, who was handed the baton from Wed. Words writing challenges, Delores from Under the Porch light. This post is from 2015, along with the sentence prompt. 

The italicized underlined Wednesday words are courtesy of River, who was handed the baton from Wed. Words writing challenges, Delores from Under the Porch light. This post is from 2015, along with the sentence prompt. 

Why I married my husband...

 ...or maybe it should read, "Another reason why I married my husband".

(Reference note: Grandma, why did you marry Grandpa?
AND   Sunshine and the Solar System)

I was sitting here, content to check out blogs and make comments.

John had taken the telescope out to back yard (there is no yard, just a pool which is seldom used).

He came running in, "Quick.  You gotta see this!  Jupiter's moons are lined up, and you can even see..."

I told him, "Just a minute, okay?"

"No, you gotta come now.  These things move out of focus really fast!"

Jupiter with its moons

So we ran out back, and he refocused the telescope.

The planets' positions on evening, March 3, 2012

 Today's night sky


There Jupiter was with striations of orange and brown, with three of its moons in a line, and one shy moon snuggled in just beneath Jupiter.

Jupiter moving closer to Venus, with the Moon looking on

Awe struck.  That's what I was.  Then I look at John; his face was lit up like a child sharing a special toy with a special person.


And that's another reason why I married my husband.

 

What radio stations played in the 60s

 

My intro to music was on our radio station, WBBA , out of Pittsfield, Illinois.  Country music was primary, even though Peter,  Paul and Mary were available.  Then that station changed, adapting somewhat to modern music.  

"Itsy bitsy teenie weenie polka dot bikini" appeared now and then along with "One Eye one horn flying purple people eater". Are you familiar with these gems?

As a not quite teenager, I loved this.  How could the faithful to country radio station could broadcast such delight?

Then the music world moved to other music numbers which involved a vehicle of some sort, a love relationship, and/or disaster. 

Leader of the Pack!  

 And then, there were the Beach Boys.  My world was expanded with each new discovery.

Even so, there would always be WBBA:

WBBA FM 97.5

Wbba Radio
Double Barreled Country

 

The Privileges of the Gentry

 

family portrait  

 The sight of Marchioness Hermoine plunging through the mass of titled gentry would remain an indelible memory in her daughter’s mind. Her elegant grace and steely gaze ran interference for the daughter Gemma, brushing aside lesser baronesses and viscounts as she made straight for the Duke of Canterlen’s son. She would slice him to pieces. 

“Clement!” she addressed him with a curtsy. It was a matter of form, and he responded, “Marchioness” with a deep bow.

Clement grew pale when Gemma emerged into view.  Curtsy, bow, smile.

“Clement,” the Marchioness addressed him.  “It has been said that your father has been and is now a magnanimous man.”  Hermoine stepped in closely to the now shivering man.  “You have stolen two possessions of great value from the Marquess of Braunchton. How do you propose to make reparations for each?”

Clement staggered with the knowledge that his father the Duke and Gemma’s father the Marquess were going to do some very bad and fully deserved things to him.

                                         English manor house 1800s

 

Clement viewed the attendees and he clearly saw the Duke and Marquess breaking through the crowd of elites.  He took off and headed to the stable where his horse stood still in saddle.  Leaping on and tearing out across the Sussex countryside, Clement prayed there was a ship of any sort heading out the harbor.

 Questions:  What had he done?  What two things had he stolen? 

 What reparations are expected?  What would you do?  Details, please. 

 

These italicized and underlined words were provided by Delores from Under the Porch Light.  Each Wednesday,  Delores provided six daunting words for any who wishes to participate in this writing challenge.  This post was from 2018.