Fido Buys the Farm

Joe found his dog lying out behind his car, not moving.  He grabbed Fido up and ran him in to the vet.

Vet:  “”I’m sorry.  Your dog is dead.  That’ll be fifty bucks.”

Joe:  “No, he can’t be!”  He threw Fido in the car and drove a few miles to see Vet #2.  This one put him up on the exam table, checked him over good then brought a Labrador Retriever Into the room.  The Lab sniffed Fido, poked him with his foot, but Fido didn’t respond.  Next the vet brought a cat in and waved him over Fido.

Vet#2:  “Sorry, your dog’s dead, alright.  That’ll be three-hundred and fifty dollars.”

Joe:  “Now hold on.  The other vet only charged me fifty dollars!”

Vet #2:  “Yeah, but I did a Lab test and Cat scan!”

Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part II of II 1930s memoir)

Repost of earlier post few readers saw:

Out of respect for the family, Mr. Kinnebrew dismissed school at noon. Ruth Elaine, normally socially invisible, wandered from the office with her lunch bucket, mystified to find herself Queen of the Playground. The big girls jostled for position around her, shoving lowly first graders to the side, demanding details of the catastrophe. “Did it set him on

Ruth Elaine and the Exploding Baby (Part I of II 1930s Memoir)

I was praying for salvation as the class suffered along with Luther Simpson through a page of Jane and Fluff the Kitten.  The second-graders pretended to work on their sums across the aisle. in our shared classroom in 1935 in East Texas. Little Ruth Elaine Lawson, a girl I’d had always found dull, dropped her head to her desk and snuffled

5 Things to Make Me Feel at Home

I am most at home in my kitchen surrounded by few of  my most-loved  and well-used things.  As soon as I expect company, the tea-kettle and coffee-maker, both gifts from my daughter, are notified.  As water boils in my ancient copper tea-kettle, I grind coffee beans in the battered coffee-mill.   Soon tea steeps in the butterfly teapot a sister gave me while I fill my polka-dot chicken creamer and sugar bowl.  A plate of cookies, snacks or hot biscuits and a few flowers from my yard brighten the home-crafted drop leaf table my husband built.  The  tiny table-topper cloth came to me from another sister. Although in the past, I prided myself on newer things, these old favorites warm my heart today and say “Welcome,  Friend” like nothing else.

“Come on in and sit awhile.”

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Home Turf.”

Three Quotes in Three Days

This is the second day of my Three Quotes in Three Days Challenge by Brian at Vancouver Visions.  Please check out his excellent blog.  Instead of nominating specific bloggers, I encourage anyone who feels inspired to join in.

I had a cousin who was married to an eccentric fellow.  From time to time, he would go way off the mark and Cousin Sue would set about straightening him out.  When it looked as though she might be about to commit mayhem, he’d head for the hills, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t go crazy, Sue!”

Ever since then, when it looks like a family hothead is about to lose it, someone is sure to remind them, “Don’t go crazy, Sue!”

Cousin Mavis and the Heartbroken Philanderer

Many years ago, I had a Cousin Mavis, who’d inherited a really nice farm, together with her brother Beau, in an idyllic mountain valley.  She married Lloyd who greatly admired her farm.  They had a daughter, Sally.  Mavis quickly took issue with her husband’s carousing and tossed him out.  Quite willing and able to take care of herself, she continued to live happily on her farm with her brother Beau and Sally.  Beau did the majority of the farm work while Mavis taught school and kept the house running,   The three of them had a good life together, bumping along quite satisfactorily.  Beau never married though he was happy to keep company with a widow lady, saying, “No house was big enough for two women.”  In truth, I’m sure he felt he already had a wonderful homemaker who shared his expenses, a doting niece, and a prosperous farm he had no wish to divide.

Her husband, Lloyd, was never quite reconciled to the divorce, realizing what a mistake he’d made in losing Mavis.  Though he never lost his penchant for women and drink, he bought land just across the road, building a house there so he’d have a chance to worm his way by into Mavis’ affections and be in his his daughter’s life .  Little Sally saw her father daily, just like he’d planned, but Lloyd made a point to keep an eye on what went on at Mavis’s place all the time.  Unfortunately, this gave Mavis a bird’s eye view of his social activities, not a wise move for a man seeking forgiveness from a wronged wife.  Despite his many raucous parties and interesting friendships, he was forever hopeful, lo these many years later, that today Mavis would welcome him back into her loving arms.  Whenever an unfamiliar vehicle drove up, Lloyd was sure to amble over to check the guest out.   The first time we visited her, Mavis said, “Oh Lordy, here comes Lloyd to see if y’all are my boyfriend.”

Mavis, Beau, and Lloyd lived this way for more than fifty years, till the lovely Sally finally inherited both places, uniting them, as Lloyd had always hoped.

The Model T and Potholes

Mama held me tight on her lap in the backseat of Uncle Herb’s old Model T Ford as we bounced toward Clarksville, bound to spend the Fourth of July with Grandma and Grandpa Perkins.  She was worried I’d fall out the window, though how I’d have managed it was a mystery to me with the death grip she me in.  John sat next to the other window, a box with several quarts of Mama’s pickles and fresh tomatoes rattling between us.  Daddy stayed behind to milk and take care of the garden.  I don’t think he minded not going to Grandma’s at all.

In 1934, only a red-dirt road ran four miles between Cuthand Creek and Cuthand.  Rutted and often impassable in winter. It was riddled with huge potholes in summer, a real obstacle course for the battered old Model T Uncle Herb had just acquired.  We were delighted to see him and it, since he was the first in the family to own a car.  Dust fogged up about a half-mile from home when the car bumped into a pot-hole and rattled to a stop.  When it wouldnt start again, he lifted the hood, finding a

part had rattled off.  Looking behind us, he found the part, replaced it, and off we went.  This obviously wasn’t the first time it had worked loose.  The threads were stripped nearly bare.  After the next big bump, the same thing happened.  He found the part and screwed it back on, though he knew it wouldn’t hold long.  It didn’t.  Not thirty feet down the road, it fell off again on a moderately smooth section of road.  He left the left side of the hood up, had Uncle Dave sit on  the right fender and hold the part in place as he slowly navigated between potholes the rest of the way in to Cuthand, where he could make some repairs.  Mama kept a watch behind as Dave clung perilously to the fender while trying to keep the car running.  It was a long four miles into Cuthand.

Wonderful Times of Reading Aloud

It has always been a joy to hear my sister Phyllis read aloud.  Till my last days, I will cherish a few days during school Christmas vacation in 1961.  Phyllis was enjoying reading Great Expectations in her ninth grade English class and offered to read a few pages aloud. Daddy was working second shift at the paper mill, so once he left and the remains of the noon meal were cleared away, we settled in the cozy living room for a reading.  I would have been eleven, Billy, eight, and Connie and Marilyn, two and a few months old.  Enraptured by the story of Pip, the cruel Estella, and the mad Miss Havisham, I would

Are You Hungry?

That was the first question Daddy asked every person who entered his house, should they be a friend, relative, or Kirby Vacuum Cleaner Salesman who happened to be hopelessly lost on the back roads of rural Bossier Parish.  Raised during The Great Depression, always hungry, he frequently did a day’s work for no more than food.  He swore if he ever got grown, no one would ever leave his house hungry.  “Are you hungry?  Kathleen will fix you something to eat!”   The burden of his good intentions