Musings of the Chronologically Challenged™ Fourth Generation

 
>^..^<


>^..^< Every morning meditation therapy.

>^..^< Swann, Swann, He's our Man! Rah, Rah, Rah!!!

>^..^< In his own inimitable way (no censorship whatsoever!) GOC-Winston Salem has a listing of HIS 2005 Awards.

>^..^< Charming has some charming pictures of some of the charming people who attended the charming Catfish Manor Seafood and Musical Festival. (I will need a dozen Clorox bubble baths to get UN-green!!!)

>^..^< If there is a convenient bullet, go ahead and bite it. I'm cleaning out the InBox!! You are warned.



INCOMING


From Karl, Hubert, NC

HAPPY CHANUKAH
A young boy had just gotten his driving permit. He asked his father, who was a rabbi, if they could discuss his use of the family car. His father took him into his study and said, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up, study your Talmud a little, get your hair cut and then we'll talk about it."

After about a month, the boy came back and again asked his father if they could discuss his use of the car. They again went into the father's study where the father said, "Son, I've been very proud of you. You have brought your grades up, you've studied the Talmud diligently, but you didn't get your hair cut."

The young man waited a moment and then replied, "You know Dad, I've been thinking about that. You know Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, Noah had long hair, and even Jesus had long hair."

The rabbi said, "Yes, and everywhere they went, they walked."



From Susan, Greensboro, NC

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?...
(1) You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. -- Alan, age 10
(2) No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kirsten, age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
(1) Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. -- Camille, age 10
(2) No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married. -- Freddie, age 6 (very wise for his age)

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
(1) You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. -- Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
(1) Both don't want any more kids. -- Lori, age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
(1) Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough. -- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)
(2) On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. -- Martin, age 10

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?
(1) I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns. -- Craig, age 9

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
(1) When they're rich. -- Pam, age 7
(2) The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that. -- Curt, age 7
(3) The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. -- Howard, age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
(1) It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. -- Anita, age 9 (bless you child)

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?
(1) There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? -- Kelvin, age 8

And the #1 Favorite is.....

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
(1) Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck. -- Ricky, age 10



From Old Jimmy, Ayden, NC

REFLECT ON THESE......
"Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they have already been stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other," - Robert Benchley®
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.®
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and I used to eat it raw sometimes too; our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.®
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.®
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.®
We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.®
Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.®
Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.®
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.®
I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway)®
What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.®
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.®
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.®
I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers that could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.®
Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!®
We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room followed by a 10-day dose of a $59 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.®
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) there too and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.®
Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee; kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks. (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough .. it wasn't so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.®
Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.®
Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive. How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.®
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes!®
We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?®
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA!


From Brenda, Atlanta

THE WORLD TODAY
Let's see if I understand how the world works lately... If a man cuts his finger off while slicing salami at work, he blames the restaurant. If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company. If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender. If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television. If your friend is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturer. And if a crazed person breaks into the cockpit and tries to kill the pilot at 35,000 feet, and the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the crazed deceased blames the airline. I must have lived too long to understand the world as it is anymore. So, if I die while my old, wrinkled ass is parked in front of this computer, I want all of you to blame Bill Gates...okay?
posted by HCL at 12:02 PM