Who comes up with this stuff? Who watches this stuff?

Run! Run like the wind!

What is it about writing and directing on TV and movies that show absolute stupidity? The other evidence of missing intelligence is that it repeats itself, just with different words, throughout the rest of the show.

"Let's split up, so we can cover more area."  This is a pure sign of disaster.  In a haunted house where blood runs down walls?  In a cemetery known for flesh-eating inhuman monsters? In an alligator infested forest where bikini-clad teen females bounce around? (The alligators have been genetically modified which causes 4X growth and longer legs.)

"You're going to be fine! You'll be okay!" This is being said to a cognizant dying person who is bleeding buckets out within his line of sight. This is being said to some other person whose guts are being held by his rescuer.

"Don't touch that button, whatever you do, don't touch that button!  Certainly,  destruction looms. There will be explosions or maybe open the gates of hell to release damned souls. Why can't these people just follow directions?

Don't touch that button!

"Run! Go get help! We'll hold them off!" This directive is give to the weakest, least athletic person in the group.  He/she takes off, running down the center of the road while a howling monster on a flaming motorcycle chases him/her.

I know all this because my husband watches these shows and movies while I write. My comments: Really?? You have to watch this again?! Headphones are wonderful inventions.

Honor the Heroes

Pinterest

California is ripe for the burning, as wildfire season kicks in. 

Last year was a record for the wildfires suffered in California. One fire lasted two months, finally reaching containment in December.  It was huge in the numbers of deaths and acreage of land burned.

What kept more from dying and homes from being burned? Firefighters. Heroes.

This week is Fireman Week, and should be honored by all. Please remember this, and thank every firemen you see or meet.

History of Firemen from 1920s, 6 minutes long 

Brave then, and brave now.

They don't even flinch. 3 minutes long

Our community of elderly people (we are the age of their children) depends on the vigilance of the firemen just down the street. They are live-savers, literally. 

There is a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie from my kitchen with their names on it.

Creased, folded, photo in hands of memories

Great-Grandma Annie Praul Shive Johnson
A creased and tattered photo--
Held, shown, and stored in a shoe box for decades.
Hard evidence of a life lived
and remembered

Around in a circle on Christmas morning at Grandma's house, that is snapshot where I still see my family, frozen in time.  Photos have a way of capturing the smiles and memories that cannot be stored on a chip, flash drive, disc, cell phone...

A photo brings back sounds of laughter, of dishware placed onto the stretched out table.  Then it would have said the table was a mile long and the browned turkey as big as the sun. Lots of children noises filled the room, children laughter and some tears.  Just a quickly as they started, they stopped when grace was said and dishes filled.

A photo inhales wafting mashed potatoes with gravy cascading down the mountain and onto stuffing.  Creamed, buttered, fragrant, never-ending--amazing food, enough to feed entire towns. 

Then pies.  Queens of homemade pies, that's what Grandma and Mom were. Name any filling and these queens could whirl to place perfect pies, steaming hot, crust golden brown on the table.
  

 Front row: Robert, Bill, and me (with my new doll)
Don, Mary, Dad and Mom Christmas 1959

A photo can be held, placed lovingly an album, where smiles and bright eyes will look at it, talk about that day.  Remember...Mom nearly spilled the gravy...apple pie was...

A photo is taken of people of people frozen in time. "Hold still. Bill, stop it..." Click and wind. Click and wind. Then the roll of film would be put in an envelope, sent off, and returned. Open the envelope. And Christmas is re-lived over and over.

Food and family without end

A photo will travel across decades to find its way into hands of one who calls back that day with all its senses.  One who will caress faces of those long gone, saying, "I know when this happened."

Grandma and Grandpa Cardiff at home

A photo kept safe for decades in a box emerges into my hands. I can still smell the pies and feel the love all around us.

Can one do this with a digital? Can one hold the photo and feel all that?