Day: November 23, 2014

Buried in Snow Bank for 13 Hours, Mom Pens Farewell Notes to Daughters Before Rescue

Rye logged from LittleKarl’s Blog Thanks

Little Karl's Blog

Karen Rossi and her daughter Madelyn
John Hickey/Buffalo News

By Andrea Billups

11/23/2014 AT 01:40 PM EST

Stranded in a snow bank, her blue Chevy Cobalt buried under several feet of ice, Karen Rossi feared the worse as she huddled in her car in freezing temperatures.So as the hours slipped away, the Lancaster, New York, pharmacy technician penned farewell letters to her two daughters, thinking no one would find her before it was too late as a record-setting, 6-foot snowfall buried the region.”It felt like I was underground, buried in a casket,” Rossi told the Buffalo News of her harrowing ordeal.”It was surreal. It was just silent for hours. Nobody came. And my phone had died. I couldn’t charge it because I’d taken my daughter’s car to work,” Rossi, 47, told the News, noting she’d left the hospital where she’d worked an extra shift at 3 a.m., driving right…

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Mixed Nuts (Part II of III)

Repost:

When you are dealing with family, it clarifies things to have a scale.  You don’t have to waste time analyzing people when you have a ready reference.  This one works pretty well for us.

1.Has a monogrammed straight jacket and standing reservation on mental ward.

2.Family is likely to move away without leaving forwarding address. Has jail time in the past or the future

3.People say, “Oh, crap. Here comes Johnny.”

4.Can go either way.  Gets by on a good day.  Never has been arrested.  Can be  lots of fun or a real mess. Relatives usually will invite in for coffee.  Likely to have hormone-induced behavior.

5.Regular guy. Holds down a job.  Mostly takes care of business.  Probably not a serial marry-er.  Attends  church when he has to.

6.Good fellow. Almost everybody likes him or her. Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  Manages money well enough to retire early.

7.High achiever.  Business is in order.  Serves on city council.

8.Looks too good to be true. What’s really going on?

9.Over-achiever. Affairs are in order.  Solid citizen.  Dull, dull, dull.  Could end up as a 1 Continue reading →

Mixed Nuts (Part I) Reblog

I am reblogging one of my first, favorite posts about my eccentric family.  Enjoy!

When you are dealing with family, it clarifies things to have a scale.  You don’t have to waste time analyzing people when you have a ready reference.  This one works pretty well for us.

1.Has a monogrammed straight jacket and standing reservation on mental ward.

2.Family is likely to move away without leaving forwarding address. Has jail time in the past or the future

3.People say, “Oh, crap. Here comes Johnny.”

4.Can go either way.  Gets by on a good day.  Never has been arrested.  Can be  lots of fun or a real mess. Relatives usually will invite in for coffee.  Likely to have hormone-induced behavior.

5.Regular guy. Holds down a job.  Mostly takes care of business.  Probably not a serial marrier.  Attends  church when he has to.

6.Good fellow. Almost everybody likes him or her. Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  Manages money well enough to retire early.

7.High achiever.  Business is in order.  Serves on city council.

8.Looks too good to be true. What’s really going on?

9.Over-achiever. Affairs are in order.  Solid citizen.  Dull, dull, dull.  Could end up as a 1 Continue reading →

Jolly Funeral Policy

Agents selling funeral policies were a fixture in the rural South.  Our budget was too tight for such luxuries as funeral policies, so Mother tried hard to make sure we didn’t die.  Myrtle Harper sold policies for Jolly Funeral Home and Watkins products for the home.  She was a nosy do-gooder who carried sunshine from house to house, dispensing information about people’s financial situations (Betty Jones was three months behind on her six policies but thought she might be able to get the money from her Mama, now that her daddy had drunk himself to death and Mama wasn’t stretched quite so tight), their health(It’s a good thing, Bonnie Mercer bought that nice policy on her new baby.  She might need it if the baby didn’t start looking better.) and social issues.(Bertha Willis had another black eye and “No wonder Phil Parker ran around with everything in a skirt.  Lucy kept a filthy house and her cooking wasn’t fit for the hogs.”)

Even though Mother had repeatedly refused to purchase funeral policies,  Mother  occasionally bought Watkins Vanilla or Anti Pain Oil for her headaches, so Myrtle kept optimistically coming by every time she was in the neighborhood.  She inspected each new baby hopefully to see if it might look puny enough to tempt Mother into buying a new policy.  When Connie and Marilyn were toddlers, they sat playing in the shade of a huge oak tree as Mother and Myrtle drank tea and Myrtle planned her latest insurance campaign.  “Just look at those two little girls playing there.  If you bought a policy for them right now, I could get them both a four hundred policy for just a dollar a month.  If you wait till they’re thirteen, it would cost you at least a thousand dollars to bury them.”

Mother studied her babies thoughtfully.  “Well, I guess we’d better bury them now.  I wouldn’t want to miss out on a good deal.” Myrtle never even knew she was being strung along.

Puke

As I walked in my first grade classroom in December 1956,  I  wondered what all the excitement in the back of the room was about. The kids were buzzing around a mushy, malodorous pile of paper towels on the floor.  “What happened?” Continue reading →