Published in the Rains County Leader on January 17, 2017:
Sunday night, after the Dallas Cowboys closed out their 2016 season with a heart-stopping loss to the Green Bay Packers, David switched over to NBC so we could watch the Steelers and the Chiefs fight it out for the privilege of playing the Patriots next week. Along with the football game, we also watched weather reports – a lot of them! (more…)
Published in the Rains County Leader on December 20, 2016:
The Rains County Leader always closes for the last week of the year, so this will be the last issue of the paper until 2017. Following the example of many of news programs and talk shows, I did a quick review of my columns from the last year. Here is a brief overview of what I shared with your during 2016. (more…)
David and I have taken to the open road for the month of October – not in the motor home, but in the car. At first I hesitated to write about our trip, thinking my articles might attract the criminal element, but the home place is protected by our resident attack Kitty and lots of observant neighbors.
While we don’t have a set travel itinerary, we do have a couple of primary goals. The main one as far as I’m concerned is spending time with the grandkids – and their parents, of course. A close second, at least for David, is visiting with several Navy buddies he has reconnected with on the Internet. (more…)
Published in the Rains County Leader September 8, 2015:
Ideas came easily the last two weeks. All I had to do was recount the antics of Spike, the mischievous pet we were staying with while his “parents” were out of town. Both columns were written and submitted on Saturday, well before the Monday morning deadline. Not so this week. When I turned on my computer after lunch on Sunday, I had a bad case of writer’s block. I played several games of Free Cell, Mahjong, and Spider Solitaire while I waited for inspiration, but as dinner time approached, my Word document was still blank.
I finally resorted to a modern source – Facebook – where I posted the following status update: I have a City Girl column due for this week’s paper without a clue what to write about. Suggestions? I received a few responses, but the first one caught my attention. As I was standing at the sink cutting chicken wings apart to make some hot wings, I started thinking about how many chickens I have cut up and fried during my lifetime. Do any of you young girls cut up a whole chicken for frying? My daughter is a fabulous cook, but she wouldn’t have a clue how to cut up a chicken! You young ones weigh in on this…I’m thinking I may have become antique! (more…)
“It’s 99 outside, feels like 101,” said David, looking at the weather on his phone. “Triple digits for at least the next week. I don’t know how we survived before air conditioning.”
We’ve had this same conversation several times since summer finally came to Texas – especially when our air conditioning unit stopped working the Thursday before the Fourth of July. For several days David worked with a repairman and two helpful neighbors, but due to a series of replacement parts that were unavailable or didn’t work, our central unit sat idle until Monday. Thankfully, we had installed a window unit in the bedroom a few weeks before, so we survived the weekend by closing ourselves in and watching lots of old movies – and we talked about how we kept cool before Freon became available to the masses. (more…)
David and I had an unexpected and really fun date night last week. It was unexpected first, because it happened Saturday morning, and second, because we thought we were going to meet some of our Senior Center friends at a local church for their monthly breakfast. There had been a change of schedule, though, and we didn’t get the memo. When we arrived, the parking lot was empty and the doors were closed and locked. (more…)
Group shot from Mesquite High School yearbook – 1965
We visited our kids and grandkids in Portland a few months ago, and I spent a good deal of time talking with Mattias, the 9 year old. He likes to talk – a lot – and he asks lots of questions. One of his favorites is How were things different when you were a kid? When we got home, I wrote several posts addressing the olden days, and this is the next in the series. There are links to earlier posts at the end of this one.
Kids dressed a lot differently in the 50s and 60s than they do now. One of the big differences was shoes. Shoes were usually made of leather, had smooth soles, and were brown or black. Tennis shoes were for gym class and the tennis court, and there were two choices, black high tops for the boys and white Keds for the girls. (more…)
