Boys will be boys, in the Vienna Boys Choir.

 

Vienna was the world music capital for centuries.  What it was back then, what it became, how talented the singers are is beyond what we know.

Face it, I can give a brief but profound summary of this choir, or give you the address and let you read the story yourselves.  Generally that is usually better.

 YouTube : Vienna Boys Choir

 

In 1986, we took a 5 day journey to Vienna, and I can't tell you anything else, simply because it went by so fast. The memories are meshed together. Except for this one.

 

Silly, I know. But, we arranged to sit in the balcony of a rehearsal by the Vienna Boys Choir.  We had no expectations. They were just a group of boys, of all ages, sizes, and voices. They would sing and fit together. But, they were boys.  Boys.

 

What it is about boys? Put them within 6 feet difference, and things happen. Think back about your behavior choices. Boy or Girl, it doesn't matter. Each has a different approach to early childhood, whether it is throwing spit balls, push and tickle, giggling, kicking each other. Then there are the girls. Girls have a different  group of behaviors, but a little/lot more catty, less kind. (Girls formed their own choir 2004). Boys pick their noses.

 

So much to see in Vienna, Austria.  We were there in January, during a blizzard moving in from Siberia, 1986. The snow was like an extra gift, coming from the heat in Mojave desert, when we  were young parent-hood.

Who is in charge here?

 

1960 advertisement

Boys. What can be said about boys?  So much, a lot. 

As a teacher I enjoyed teaching boys. Cut it out. I am looking at you. And, classroom life would resume.  But girls? 

A classroom of girls is much like a room full of cats. Things go bad fast when Lisa has a "dispute" with Becky, and then explosions. 

Another time I will highlight the females of the same age.  Should be interesting.

Wednesday Words: Nefarious

Town of Nefarious, Wyoming: pop. 4957 ---953

"Come Sick, Leave Healthy"

At the turn of the 1900s, Nefarious had been a boom town.  Seltzer Springs brought in wagons full of health seekers to use the springs, eat peculiar food, and spend money.

Alas, the Springs started to dry up along with the tourists.  Around 1993, the population itself dwindled.  Then one day, few boys were playing in the empty waterbed.  They screamed in delight, ran back to the mayor, Ol' Doc Kinkaid, who confirmed their big find.  He took to kids to his house and locked them in a closet.  "I'll let you out when the city council men get here."

The council men came quickly as there had been little to do lately.

The boys told them and led them to the creek bed.  "Look, Mr. Jenkins! Look!"  And there it was: the bones of an immense prehistoric boa, 50 feet long with the circumference of 8 feet.  Silence fell.  There was more to be found as they walked along the dried stream lined with dinosaur bones.

Source

In the quiet dining room of the widower Jasper Fillings way out of town, all men along with the boys sat around the dining table and a plan was hatched.  "In two weeks time, we must re-construct our miserable little town to make it look like it did back in 1890s.   Stores must occupy the empty old stores....and anyone known to be a gossip and who has relatives who are gossips must be confined.  Phones ripped out, Facebook and such shut down...secrecy is the key. Boys?  You wanta help or be locked up in the old boarded up classroom out in the Old school?"

The town without the gossipy kind threw muscle into renewal.  Quilts were ordered from China, tags removed, with new tags added "Hand-sewn by Louisie May Smith".  Rusty tools and blackmith shop restored.  Jars and jars of jams, preserves, and candles were ordered.  The labels were stripped off, and new ones put on:  Mrs. Nefer's Homemade.... My...Oh, the work. Nefarious appeared to be frozen in the late 1800s.

The gossipy type were sent on a 21 day cruise to Hawaii in the Holland American vee Dam. 


Finally, the paleontologists were summoned.  Two wise men, then four, then more:  all agreed that this was the biggest titanoba ever found, and joy overflowed as they walked down the creek bed.

A lackadaisical bearded old man was paid to sit in an old chair with his feet propped up on the sidewalk railing.  Curious tourists with full shopping bags asked him how long had he been there.

source

"Heck if I know,"  he answered and then aimed some tobacco spit at the nearby spittoon.  Sometime he hit the mark, sometimes he did not.

Please forgive me if there is a town/city named Nefarious.  I checked every where and this did not seem to be anywhere.  If there is, I do beg for your forgiveness.

Special for Special

Oh, I could have used this jar of change!

When we were young parents with three small children, we were always struggling with finances.  ‘Struggling’ is a mild word, for I was doing down-right brutal, in-the-mud, hand-to-hand battle with money, or the lack of it. 

I was frugal, careful with every penny.    I was so frugal that I would stop in the middle of a roasting parking lot in 114 degrees to pick up a flattened penny. 

It was about the end of the month that I noticed that our 2 ½ year old son, Johnny, was walking slowly and seemed to have problems with his feet. 

The GP doctor said that his feet were pronating which means… 

to turn into a prone position; to rotate (the hand or forearm) so that the surface of the palm is downward or toward the back; to turn (the sole of the foot) outward so that the inner edge of the foot bears the weight when standing.  

Laces on, tie shoes; untie shoes, look for shoes

He sent us to an orthopedic doctor who would diagnose and write a prescription for special shoes.

Centipede from James and the Giant Peach

Specialty doctor?  Special shoes?  Money, where would we get the money?

Somehow, God provided, and we brought home the ugliest shoes a boy has had to wear from Stride Rite shoe store (good store, by the way).  They were brown leather, laced up over the ankle, and the sole had been adjusted for Johnny’s feet.  Putting them on and off reminded me of the centipede in James and the Giant Peach.  They cost $85.

 That may not sound like a fortune now, but in 1981 when the mortgage rates were 16.5% and we had no money, it was a fortune.

 Needless to tell any mother out there, boys misplace everything.  Everything.  At the end of the first day after bath time, the shoes were somewhere.  My oldest daughter found them, and I talked straight into Johnny’s face about where the shoes would/should go each time he took them off.  He nodded, as if he understood a word I had said.

 For the next two days, we played hide-and-seek­ with these shoes made of gold.  Finally at the end of the third day, I pulled Johnny up into my lap, and gave him the shoes, telling him (with tears in my eyes) that these shoes were made especially for HIM, because he was so special.  With big eyes and a solemn nod, he went off to bed.

 Before I turned in, I decided to make sure the shoes were where they were supposed to be, and they were not.  Growing more and more frantic, I searched the house with my husband.  We looked everywhere, no shoes.

 I was ready to burst into Johnny’s room and wake him up, to ask him where the shoes were.  I opened the door and walked in.  What I saw changed my whole perspective.

 Johnny was lying on his back with that soft kissable baby face.  Tucked under each arm was a shoe, with his special arms tightly wrapped around those special shoes. 

 I kissed his rosy cheeks and brushed back his hair.  God bless this child!  I tiptoed out.

 

 

 

 

 

Boys Break Things

There is a simple truth in a girl’s life that we all have had to accept occasionally throughout the female life:  Boys break things.

I learned this repeatedly throughout my growing up years, since I had three brothers.  The first time was a minor breakage, but the breaking of my things grew in magnitude as my brothers grew.  I remember Christmas 1959—it was a wonderful Christmas, for Santa had gotten some extra money from the sale of hogs.  Pork prices must have been up for that time period.  When I opened my presents, I had received a bride doll.  She had luxurious black wavy hair like Elizabeth Taylor.  And I was given a two-piece set of pink metal refrigerator and range; the doors opened and closed; and, there were miniature boxes of cake mix, cans of peas, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.  It was amazing.  My oldest brother Don gave me a brush, comb, mirror, and talcum powder dresser set; I felt so grown up.  My older brother Robert gave me a make-up set for girls about my age (8).  Bill was four years old, and Mary was only 2, so I don’t remember what they gave.

I went back to school after break was over, taking my new doll.  I came home excited, for I was going to play with my new toys.  As I climbed the stairs to my room, I became apprehensive; there were white talc footprints heading down the stairs.  I ran to my room, and beheld the carnage. 

Everything was covered in talc powder.  My comb was broken, the mirror was cracked.  There was lipstick all over the face of my old doll.  The toy food boxes had been smashed, and there was a dent in the sides of the refrigerator and stove.  All my precious new toys had suffered a great assault. 

I ran down the stairs, “Mmmmooooommmmm!” all the way.  She was peeling potatoes for dinner, and didn’t even turn around.  “What’s the matter?” I poured out my heart, with all the frustration and pain an eight-year old girl can feel.  It was Bill mainly, but Mary did the lipstick, I knew this.  Bill broke my gifts.  “Well, go clean it up.”  She continued peeling.  I glanced into the living room, where the two miscreants sat innocently watching cartoons.  I wanted beatings, I wanted revenge, I wanted…something.

I went upstairs and cleaned up the mess, trying to clean off the lipstick, reshape the little cornflake box.  I never forgot:  Boys break things.

Recently, when I was visiting my daughter Erin, she asked the girls what they know about boys.  Without even looking up from their playing, they said in unison: “Boys break things.”  Another generation learns the hard truth.