Church Potluck Outreach

 

A moratorium was now placed on church potlucks. The last one caused a flash fire when the Barbecue Pit exploded, sending miscellaneous pork bits and ribs, along with Bob’s Secret Ingredient (lots of whiskey) flaming sauce, flying over to Old Miz Guthrie’s tiny old house.

Old Miz Guthrie heard screaming coming her way, and then smelled the barbeque fire on her roof.  “Oh, Lordy, Lordy!  My house ‘s afire!”  As fast as a squirrel on a live wire, she scampered out the door, wringing her hands while the fire department extinguished the barbecue flickers of flame.

No damage done, Old Miz Guthrie thanked everyone, shushing them away, and hurried back inside.  Looking around at her immaculate, nicely decorated home, she raced down the steps to her basement, which was packed with fire-proof chests of gold coins, jewelry (oh, how she love nice jewelry), and packs of one-hundred bills. 

Unbeknownst to the community, Old Miz Guthrie was quite a spendthrift made possible by her late husband’s last bank robbery in 1955 in Chicago.  I better get outta this town.

The next day her brother Raffert showed up at night with a big van and they moved everything from the basement during the big school dance.  Just before she closed the front door, Old Miz Guthrie turned the cooker on high, with bright flames crawling to a dishtowel.

The town mourned for her. Damned BBQ sauce.

This is a Wed. Words from 2015, and it was different.  I hope you can enjoy. It was created by Delores, who has given up computers, River has taken up the slack, but might like to have someone else to share this. Are that person??

To be seen, but not to be heard

1997 What the Deaf Man Heard

When my father finally admitted that he needed a hearing aid, we sighed with relief. Decades of handling farm equipment had damaged his hearing as it had to all the other farmers his age.  We tired of repeating and dealing with his frustration, and I am guessing other families did as well.

We made some assumptions just how much he could hear with his new hearing aids. They weren’t 100% and has a tired old acronym: to assume makes an ass of you and me.

That is what we did, thinking we could talk in the kitchen and he would not hear what we said from the living room. We discovered this early on, which was fortunate.

 YouTube: 10 min. "Making of Deaf Man

In a 1997 Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, What the Deaf Man Heard**, Sammy (played by Matthew Modine) is left on a bus when his mother is murdered. She had always and repeatedly warned him to “keep quiet”, which Sammy took to the extreme. The bus station manager and wife informally adopt him, believing him to be deaf and mute.

As Sammy feigns being deaf and mute, the small community grows to accept it and he becomes invisible to them. He shows talent as a gardener, leading him to be involved in the lives of the elite. Over 20 years, Sammy uses this as a shield and learns a heck of a lot of secrets.

Therein lies the whole purpose of this blog: 

What would you do? Could you be like 

Sammy for 20 years? Could you be invisible? Do you know people who fit in this category?

**Cast: Matthew Modine, Claire Bloom, Judith Ivey, James Earl Jones,  Tom Skerritt, Frankie Muniz, Bernadette Peters

The above YouTube clip is about the making of the movie. It is 10 minutes long, but shows much about the challenges of the south in post WW2, discrimination, treatment of people with disabilities, class structures, etc.

  Worth watching in parts

Meeting the Future and Dodging the Bullets...

YouTube with traditional graduation march, as composed by Edward Elgar

Graduation could not have come soon enough for students and parents alike.  That cap-and-gown walk into the gymnasium was dignified, with a few smirks and sly looks.  We are outta here!

There were at least three girls that I knew for sure were in the family way, had a bun in the oven, knocked up, and pregnant. Not that this wasn't a surprise, being who they were and their reputations.  AND there were many more who were anxiously watching the calendars, crossing each day off, and waiting.  This, again, I suspected and heard the gossip, since no girl keeps that secret to herself.

Meanwhile, there were some parents with grim faces, clenched jaws, and hands balled up in barely contained fury.  These were girls' parents, who had seen the evidence bulging out.  Others were the boys' parents who forced confessions after talking with girls' parents.

AND THEN there were parents who discovered that their boys had made side trips to other schools, and this was a drama in itself.

Each of those parents were thinking: we raised up our kids right, in the fear of the Lord!... Whenever church doors were open, we sat in the pews singing hymns!... We went to church, youth group, church camp.... We had family devotions every night!...We prayed with them, saw them saved at the altar.  We did not talk about sex, because that would give them permission to "do it". HOW could this have happened?

Well, I will tell you why this happened:  All dating venues were off bounds since they were evil or sinful.

Bowling alleys?  They served beer there.  Movies?  Oh, heavens no--all those actors were sinners and who knows what the hidden messages might exist.  Miniature golfing?  Just the two of them?  They need chaperones for that, too.  Eat out?  Are you kidding?  We don't have money for that!   Dancing? That stirs up lust and invites the devil in.

All that was left was parking in a cornfield and making out, which means to kiss passionately and grope body parts. Oh, there were many many cars in a field, leaving farmers to wonder who smashed down corn stalks. All it took was a promise and a kiss, plus I'll marry you if you get pregnant.

When graduates marched out the gymnasium door, some knew that next week, they would be marching down the aisle, wearing a wedding dress in a lovely shade of ivory.

Traditional Wedding March, Mendelssohn, as played by Diane Bish

 Addendum: 
This was in my 1969 graduation.  Life was different then.  Birth control was for married women.  Pills prescribed were to them.  Buying condoms often required driving to the next state over. Yup, this issue was a non-issue, due to many factors.

Wed. Words: Secret Life of St. Dymphna

One of many Irish Female Saints

The Ladies’ Auxiliary of St. Ann Church were engaged in vigorous debate about page 37 of “Secret Life of Saint Dymphna” when all hell broke loose.

Father Gary threw open the doors in a small book room, crying, “Someone has broken into our church hall!”

Caught between horror and mirth, all stood up, racing to the church hall. Auxiliary president, Mrs. Girth was last to take off running, the only one with mirth bubbling within, smiling at rear ends ahead of her.  Her thoughts were random and full of disdain.

Ha! Mrs. Garson! ...you did not know anyone saw you having a romp with that handsome altar boy behind table skirts in this very room! …and Miss Maulder, you wretch!  Stealing holy wine, swigging it down after service! Really!  I could smell it on your breath!

The herd had reached the hall, each searching the room.  Mrs. Girth hung back, watching, smirking.

Ha! Ms. Barton!  No one knew that it was you who wolfed cartons of butter pecan and moose tracks ice cream…but I saw you.

The search revealed nothing.  The book club resumed, whispering and speculating. Mrs. Girth watched them, knowing that someday all truths would collide and she, as always, would be there to observe.

The Wednesday Words meme was started by Delores .  It has since been handed over to volunteers to present the writing prompts.  Six or twelve words, photo prompt, or a sentence prompt would be given to challenge bloggers to step beyond their genre. 

Magic of the Gifts

A great store then and now.

Two days before Christmas we shivered in front of Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime.  Dad gave us each a five-dollar bill!  Five dollars!  That meant $25 in 1960, a tremendous amount for him to dole out; $25 could buy six bags of feed for the hogs.

Memory says that the store was packed with people, but with today’s eyes I realize that perhaps twenty people roamed the aisles, five of which were us.  We scattered, trying to be secretive about our purchases, which was difficult.  Mom roamed a bit herself, listening for arguments and eyeing possible gifts for family.  Mom also guided three-year old Mary along and chased after five-year old Bill, helping them make choices. 

With five dollars clutched in my red, chapped and cold hands, I was blinded by all the choices.  Surely, this was more than I could ever imagine spending.  But, almost every last penny was spent, leaving a few coins with which to buy a Hershey bar.

Riding home in a crowded Ford, we glanced at each other and giggled.  In the trunk of the car, five secret-holding paper bags held the magic of the gifts we each would give.  

Scared

little girl

Such a pretty kid...How old did you say?

Her name is Vicky and she was twelve years old.

Do they know yet what happened?  

They?  You mean the detectives?

Who else would I mean?  Yeah.  Them.

They don't know.  Some kid found her in the creek, under the ice.

She....Vicky must have floated downstream...

       Then the ice froze over her...her folks waited for so long...

How are Ken and Sheila holding out?

'Bout as expected.  You taking food in for the family?

  Yeah, Lisa fixed some chicken something or other.  And a pie, peach pie.

I wonder if or when they'll ever figure out...find out what you did?

God, I hope not.  I didn't mean to...the car swerved..she just appeared and...

You must, you have to tell them what happened.

She was so scared...at the end.

       She was scared before that...you could have saved her...she would still be alive.

Father, I wasn't thinking...
     
        Time to own up, Tim...Time to give Ken and Sheila peace.

Scared...so scared.  I am so scared.

       So was she, Tim. So was she.

In 2014 This photo was the prompt and sadly this is what it inspired. As a teacher, all the "Amber Alerts"  caught me. There was a Stephanie, Jennifer...too many that disappeared only to be found a decade later.  

We had just had an Amber Alert and the poor sweetheart wasn't found weeks. The pedophilia man was given death penalty and in 2014 it was ruled that death penalty wasn't allowed in California.

My students kept asked about this little girl until I told them she had died and was found.  They were devastated. 

This is a dark streak that I don't follow down that rabbit hole, but today I have traveled there.

Taproots? What the heck?

Source

Monday’s post was an explanation about taproots.  While this topic does seem a deviation from my normal posts, this topic follows a book I am reading and an interest I have held for some time:  Healing Secrets of the Native Americans by Porter Shimer.

What did Native Americans use to battle illnesses that afflict all mankind?  What about headaches, infected injuries, liver ailments?  Kidney stones? Bad breath?  Cancer?

With a strong understanding of the plants and their medicinal advantages, early man were beyond Old World methods, some of which including bleeding the patient to remove the “evil humours”.

In 1916, my grandmother, Amy Nichols, was studying to become a pharmacist.  While I could not take her huge volumes of her studies, I did receive a book on botany that would prepare her to study the natural healing characteristics of plants. 

Source: $ 15 and it is yours!

The book?  Gray’s school and Field Biology by Asa Gray, published in 1887.

Well, now.  This book is as boring and dry as the pages upon which the information is printed.

It is WHAT was found within the pages of the tome that surprised me. 

That will be posted…later. It has changed my entire view of Amy Nichols and her sister Pearl.