Don't Fear the Reaper

We were walking last Saturday evening when this gentleman started yelling, “Rescue me! Get me away from the Reaper!”

Since he was only half there, we figured he was a goner already. A person has to know which battles to fight! Anyone who’s in that bad of shape can’t be patched up very well.

Blue Öyster Cult may not fear the Grim Reaper, but I’d rather avoid him for as long as possible.

Eastern Hotel California

Years ago, my penchant for scary voices resulted in a permanent mark on my right hand.

In my first college semester, an acquaintance heard me do an impression of the Wicked Witch of the West. Her friend was looking for people to staff a haunted house for a night. Was I interested?

I was very interested.

The man in charge, Dave, had found an abandoned house in a valley. House was surrounded by creepy overgrown trees and weeds, a perfect setting for the night’s adventure. Some of the rooms were unsafe for entry, so no one was allowed to move without a guide carrying a flashlight.

I portrayed a demented prisoner who had escaped and been recaptured. A guard, armed with a (thankfully unloaded) shotgun, was posted to see that I would not escape. I was made up to look as if I had sustained a terrible beating during my recapture and I was wearing manacles and shackles. A belly chain was the only costume piece missing.

First two groups came through our room without incident. In between the second and third groups, I decided that clawing the wall would look very scary and demented. So I tried it.

Not only did clawing the wall look demented, it was demented. I scratched off some wallpaper one time before I caught my palm on a nail. I jerked it off and continued my act, although I avoided any more contact with the wall.

Once that group was gone, I sat down in the dark and gingerly assessed my injury. I could feel a big hunk of hand protruding out the hole and a trickle of blood oozing out of it.

I told the “guard” that she had better get some help. She panicked, but at last got word to someone to help us.

When Dave showed up, he shone flashlight on my hand. I am not particularly queasy, but the sight of that big protrusion unsettled my stomach. Dave was quite unsettled as well.

We had to climb over a barbed-wire fence to reach his van and, of course, my pant leg got caught. We had an awful time getting me unhooked. Since I only had use of one hand, I was little help in extricating myself.

He was near panic by the time he got me into his van.

Once we arrived hospital, Dave left and returned to haunted house.

The town was very small and the hospital had no doctor present. My makeup was too convincing. While I waited, the nurse kept trying to treat my facial cuts and bruises. I kept repeating that my hand was injured, not my face. She would not believe me; she seemed to think that I was delirious. She said I had to have been in a motorcycle accident. I must have suffered a head injury, because I obviously didn’t know what I was talking about.

By this time, my hand was seriously throbbing and hurting. Nurse insisted upon washing off my makeup, but did nothing to treat my hand. No painkillers, no cleaning of the wound, nothing. Once the makeup was removed, she stopped insisting that I was a motorcycle accident victim. At least we were making some progress.

Finally, the doctor showed up. He looked at my hand and shook his head. “What did you do that for?” he asked.

How was I supposed to answer that?

“We’ve got to stitch this,” he said. “A couple stitches is no big deal; you don’t need any painkiller for this.”

Obviously he wasn’t working on his own hand.

The stitches weren’t particularly painful, but the feeling of thread going through flesh was indescribably disgusting. At least I didn’t look so much like a freak with the blob now reduced to relative smoothness.

He ordered the nurse to give me a tetanus shot, then left. I think Nurse missed the nursing school lesson on how to give shots. I asked her to inject my injured right arm. I wanted to have just one hurting arm instead of two. She refused. “Our protocol says we must inject the left arm.”

I said, “I’ll never tell if you inject my right arm!”

She gave me a very dirty look, then proceeded to stick me several times with the same needle in my left deltoid. She didn’t even swab injection site with alcohol. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just get it over with. Instead, she poked me repeatedly before finally driving home the needle.

A few minutes later, the rest of the haunted house staff arrived. We were 1½ hours from home and were all quite ready to leave. Unfortunately, I had no way to heat the injection site or cool the nail print site. Hospital gave me no painkillers or antibiotics.

By the time we arrived home, after one of the longest trips of my life, I was feverish and had little use of either arm. Both my right hand and my left shoulder were inflamed and infected. I couldn’t lift my left arm or close my right hand without extreme pain. I spent the next two days on my back in the campus infirmary while they pumped antibiotics into my system and tried to reduce the inflammation.

That haunted house continues to haunt me. Nearly 30 years later, the scar I received there still aches, usually for no apparent reason.

Apparently, that building was an eastern version of The Hotel California, where “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Among the innumerable stars

The stars were very numerous and bright at Stone Cottage Farm. Even in our small town, the street lights obscure the stars. But there, nestled in the hills miles from any town, the stars shine unimpeded by any man-made light.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s words in The Silmarillion
came to mind while I was looking upward: “…the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars.” I was seeing the stars somewhat like Abraham did when God promised to give him descendants like the stars in the heavens. “‘He (God) took him (Abraham) outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” - Gen. 15:5

Because the house’s thick stone walls drown out most noise, staying there is an oasis of quiet.

I sat in that lawn chair in the picture for awhile and read. I could feel myself unwinding.

Beautiful scenery, interesting books and innumerable stars: A recipe for relaxing. Next time we stay there, and I intend to have a next time, I look forward to laying in their hammock to stargaze.

Abraham and J.R.R. Tolkien make good company.

Standing stone

We took a several-hour trip to Lucas, Kan., over the long weekend. We stayed at Stone Cottage Farm Bed and Breakfast. Lucas is in Kansas’ Post Rock Country. On the treeless plains, settlers had to use whatever they could find for fence posts and building materials. Limestone lies very close to the ground in that area, so the settlers cut it out of the the earth to use.

Stone Cottage Farm features several buildings, all of post rock. They’ve landscaped with numerous post rocks. This one reminds me of a passage in my favorite author J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece The Lord of the Rings.

…Still round the corner
We may meet a sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone…

Still round the corner they may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun…

Double, double, toil and trouble

If I could choose a part to perform, I would pick one of the Weird Sisters in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. I own my grandfather’s schoolbook copy of “Macbeth”. I often read the Weird Sisters’ cauldron scene to amuse myself, trying out various scary voices.

Hubby loves this piece. He said I should post a reading for Halloween. Link is in the post title. (iTunes or other m4a player is required.) Happy Haunting!

Scene script follows (full play is here):

SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches

First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch
Harpy cries, “’Tis time, ’tis time.”

First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

All
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

All
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Praline Pumpkin Pie

I hurriedly harvested all our buttercup and volunteer pie pumpkins before our first snowstorm early Thursday morning. Hubby and I also picked every tomato that showed any sign of ripening.

We love pumpkin dessert of any sort. We tried substituting butternut for pumpkin last year and thought it delicious. When I mistakenly planted buttercup instead of butternut this spring, I was relieved to find that ’cup squash is also a good pumpkin substitute.

Thursday morning, I told Marilyn that I was about to prepare squashes for pie filling. She said I had to do one additional step before freezing them: “You must first, first, first bake us a pumpkin pie for tonight!”

I made her choice, “Pumpkin Praline Pie”, with butternut squash Hubby’s parents had grown, plus a standard pumpkin pie with our buttercup squash. Both were judged delicious by the ladies at our Bible study. They couldn’t tell whether I’d used pumpkin or one of the squashes, but they decided the praline pie was the tastier pie.

Hubby devoured the pies when he got home Friday morning.

To prepare the squash for baking, I cut one in half and microwaved it on high for 22 minutes. We have a wimpy microwave. With a decent microwave, start at 15 minutes. After that, I peeled it and pureed it in our processor. Let the squash cool before peeling it; they are hot. One medium ’cup or ’nut squash is about the equivalent of one can of pumpkin.

Pumpkin Praline Pie

Printer-friendly PDF

Recipe is adapted from the Kitchen Klatter cookbook.

Crust ingredients:
2 T. butter
1/3 C. brown sugar
1/3 C. pecans, chopped
1 unbaked pie shell

Method:
Combine butter, brown sugar and nuts. Mix well. Spread over bottom of pie shell. Bake at 425º for 10 minutes.

Filling ingredients:
1½ C. pumpkin
1 can evaporated milk
3 egg yolks
¼ C. sugar
¼ C. Splenda
½ C. brown sugar
1½ t. cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
½ t. salt
1 t. burnt sugar flavoring
Whipped cream


Method:
Combine and mix well. Pour over praline layer and bake at 325º until center is firm.

Top with whipped cream.

Insulators

I saw an interesting shed a few days ago. When I looked in the open door, I was astounded. The shed was packed with these vintage insulators. Shed was impossible to enter due to the thick layer of them strewn all over the floor. Someone had left numerous boxes full of these collector’s items.

When I looked on eBay, insulators were listed as up to $100 apiece.

I would be afraid to sort through this treasure trove, though. A horrible stench of mice urine arose from the pile on the floor. These insulators overflowed a worktable top.

Still, the forms looked wonderful. I’ve always liked shapes like this, perhaps since shapes are about the only item I can draw!

Sunset

Many of the best sunsets occur when a storm is on its way. Such was the case Tuesday night. I watched rain clouds forming when I came home that night. I had to find a good vantage point from which to photograph the sunset. Finally, I stood on an Interstate overpass and aimed at a farmstead on the horizon.

The camera didn’t do justice to the sunset, so I began to enhance the photo in Photoshop. I used both cooling and warming filters, then dodged and burned the image until it became what you see now. Ansel Adams had to spend hours in the darkroom enhancing his images; I’m only following in his footsteps.

Silverware wind chimes

The first question everyone asks about these wind chimes is “How did you twist them?”

Brute strength and determination.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The flatware belonged to my grandmother and bears her monogram. I have plenty of my own silverware, so when I got this set, I intended to make it into craft items.

Four years later, my brother and his family moved into a new house. For sister-in-love Stef’s birthday and housewarming gift, I made these wind chimes. She got to be my guinea pig.

I found instructions at CraftyGal.com.

Taryn says to flatten the flatware on a “large flat rock or anvil.” Since I had access to neither, I used an old 2x6” board instead. I clamped the handle to the board to hold the fork or spoon still while I beat the tines or bowl with a mallet.

I poured motor oil over the handle before I started drilling each one’s hole with a bit made for drilling metal. To protect my workbench from drill holes, I clamped the other end to the board I had used for pounding. I drilled through the knife’s blade. That was much easier than trying to get through the handle.

The hardware store didn’t have a chamfer bit or counter sink in that size. The owner suggested I remove the metal filings with steel wool. That worked up to a point, but I had to take a needle-nose plier to remove some of them.

Taryn says to get a friend to help you twist the handles. Hubby was asleep and my friends were busy at the time. I decided to twist them myself. If this had been a stainless steel silverware set, I doubt I could have twisted them alone. The silver was just malleable enough for me to twist, although Twist No. Three was pretty difficult.

Twisting the handles wasn’t nearly as difficult as twisting the “hanger fork” tines to hold the other utensils. Next time I make these, I’m heating the fork for greater malleability. I would have liked a smoother curve on the tines, but was afraid to be too aggressive. I was afraid I might break one or more tines if I worked too hard on them.

Next time, I’ll tape the ends I clamp and the tines to minimize scratching.

I cut the fishing line to the lengths Taryn specified, but they were too long. The silverware didn’t contact each other enough to make a sound. I had to shorten the line for it to work. (Because of our windy climate, I bought the strongest fishing line the store had.)

Taryn’s instructions didn’t say how to hang the chimes in its final location. I attached a carabiner to the fishing line for a hanger.

I was concerned how my chimes would sound. When I clinked the flatware together before stringing the chimes, I thought they sounded flat. When I hung them up for this picture, they sounded wonderful.

I enjoyed passing on a family heirloom in a different form.

Halloween bunny

This rabbit posed patiently for me while I took several photos. When I downloaded this one, I burst out laughing.

Mr. Red-Eyed Rabbit is not one I’d want to meet on Halloween night! He appears to be possessed.

I could use Photoshop’s red-eye removal feature, but I like the “possessed-rabbit” picture.

Years ago, we covered a football game involving the Jackrabbits. At halftime’s end, ‘Rabbit fans formed a lane for their players’ return to the field. As the players ran through the lane, fans chanted, “Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” The chant sounded more like “Rabids! Rabids! Rabids!”

Maybe this rabbit was the rabid rabbit they were chanting about.

Racing Jack Frost

I canned four quarts of tomatoes yesterday, which seems a pittance. I have another big bowl of partially ripened tomatoes, which I will can once they are ready. I’ve given up — at least for this year — on making salsa and spaghetti sauce. They are too much work for too little results.

I now understand why those products are so expensive in the store. The tomatoes cook down to almost nothing, so making a jar of salsa requires lots and lots of tomatoes.

We have lots and lots of green tomatoes still on the vine. Our lows have hovered around freezing the last few days, so I’ve been covering them with blankets nightly. Supposedly, temps are supposed to stay above the 40s through Tuesday, then drop into the 20s. I’m not bothering to cover them when the temps fall into the 20s. By that time, I figure that whatever we’ve harvested is what we’re going to get.

I just hope we have enough light and warmth to ripen more tomatoes. Jack Frost, stay away!

Teacher 0, Sleeper 1

I had to persistently work on keeping one of my students awake in yesterday’s first hour. Every time I’d get him to sit up, he’d have his head back on the desk in moments.

He sat in the exact same place in the room as did a student in my first-hour class years ago when I student taught. And he was doing the same activity as that student.

Every morning, that student from long ago would come in and immediately drop his head to the desk and instantly fall asleep. I was greatly annoyed by this behavior. It set a very bad example for other students and, truthfully, it was very discouraging to me.

Finally, I requested advice from the other teachers. They told me to stand next to him and drop the largest book I could find.

I located the biggest teacher’s edition the classroom had and set it on the corner of my desk. I was primed to give him a big wake-up call. My mind lingered on the delicious sight of him jumping several inches out of his chair, perhaps even to the point of carrying his desk with him. Oh, it was a glorious picture. Teacher 1, Sleeper 0.

The next morning, the student came in and actually stayed awake. He sat up in his desk and participated in class. Any other day, I would have been delighted. But on this day, my reaction was more like “Darn!”

My student teaching time was nearly up and I never had the opportunity to drop the book again. What an anticlimax. My lovely picture burst just like a soap bubble.

Teacher 0, Sleeper 1. Sort of.

A night in segregation

Hubby contributes this post. He works as a correctional officer in a medium-security prison.

When students of American history think of the word “segregation”, the turbulent late 1950s and ’60s come to mind. Citizens in that period united to give African Americans and other minorities equal treatment and rights under the Constitution. One epic figure associated with segregation’s defense was Alabama Gov. George Wallace. He was notorious for standing in a school doorway saying “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

In a prison, “segregation” is the punishment unit, a jail within the prison. Hubby often serves as the overnight segregation unit officer. Inmates are sentenced to segregation for various offenses, including assault, threats, refusing to lock down, weapons possession, tattooing and hooch (homemade alcohol) making. Other inmates are in “seg” because they have accumulated too many points to remain in a medium-security prison. They are in seg awaiting transfer to a maximum-security prison.

This segregation unit is mild compared to those at super-maximum facilities shown on television programs. Inmates here are usually respectful to seg officers because the officer is their lifeline to forms, toilet paper, telephone privileges, books, haircuts, showers and recreation. Inmates are locked down in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, seven days a week. They have the right to three meals a day and necessary medical services. Time is allotted for “dog pen” recreation and locked showers.

Three of segregation inmates’ favorite pastimes are fishing, window signing and “playing” officers.

In “fishing”, inmates remove long threads from their blankets, making them in to fishing line. Inmates tie some object onto the thread for a weight, then fling it underneath their cell doors toward their cells. Coffee, food and even dangerous contraband can be exchanged by fishing inmates. Some are so skilled that they can cast their lines sideways or from tier to tier. The line makes a zipping sound.

Fishing is the ultimate cat-and-mouse game. Seg officers love to snag lines, take contraband, then scoff at the inmates. Officers have been known to place a candy bar in the middle of the floor and let inmates fish for it. This is discouraged because fishing in seg goes against post operational rules. Inmates are supposed to be written up for fishing.

Inmates communicate with each other through window signing. They quickly draw out letters in their windows to form words. They also sometimes use code while flashing their lights.

Playing officers is not limited to seg. It occurs throughout all levels of the prison. Inmates are constantly trying to con officers for special privileges and item trading. In extreme cases, inmates wear down officers over time to get them to bring in liquor, tobacco products, outside messages or even nude pictures. Too often, officers have been sexually compromised.

American prisons have a zero tolerance for any sexual activity among inmates or between staff and inmates. Despite common jokes, no room for consensual sex exists. Officers work hard to eliminate prison rape. Rape is no laughing matter.

Good officers always try to do what’s right. Integrity is everything in a prison setting.

The decorator's best friend

As I finished our October decorating today, I decided I’d like two more fall dresser scarves, one for our antique secretary and another for our stemware rack. I had already made two small tablecloths and an occasional pillow case out of this fabric, so I knew I couldn’t have much more of it.

I wanted nothing fancy, just some pretty fabric instead of the doilies that are usually covering those furniture tops. When I looked through my very modest fabric stash, I found two pieces of this fabric. To my delight, they were just the right sizes for the surfaces I had in mind.

A few minutes with the White 534 serger and, voila!, I had my dresser scarves. Having this serger enables me to whip out decorative pieces in a short time without the trouble of hemming and I didn’t have to cut off that annoying white strip listing the manufacturer’s brand name. Lovely serger’s cutter nipped that ugly piece right off.

It’s hard to believe that I was afraid of that machine when I first inherited it from my mother. I knew I wanted the serger; I’d seen her work magic with it. My mother was an excellent seamstress, but I was just hoping to be able to make simple projects with this machine. However, looking at that tangle of threads was very intimidating. How did a person thread that thing?

I took along the serger on a business trip and attended “open sewing night” at a quilting shop I called upon. The ladies there instructed me in the machine’s use. That night I whipped out a table runner, a fall tablecloth and a bunch of napkins. I was delighted.

I still use my mother’s old Pfaff 1222 for regular sewing. I adore that old machine on which I learned to sew, but I would never want to be without that serger, either.

"It's Mom!"

Friend Cali recently visited a funeral home as part of her nursing training. In consequence, the conversation last night became rather “funereal”.

At one point, we started talking about whether burial or cremation were the better option. Is cremation really cheaper?

Amber said she would like to be cremated and have a jewel made from her ashes. I had never heard of such a thing. (It’s true.) We talked about this for a bit.

Cali said, “Can you imagine having someone compliment you on the stone in your ring and answering, ‘Yeah, it’s Mom!’”

We agreed that such a conversation would rate highly on the “Ewww factor” scale.

Hello fall!

This stack of boxes does not compare to the Christmas boxes, but emptying them still takes awhile.
I know fall has officially arrived and October has started, but I’m just now getting started on switching to fall decor. Down the hatch go the sunflowers that decked the house in August and September and up come boxes full of turning leaves, pumpkins and black cats.

We literally do send items through a hatch. We removed our old floor furnaces a couple years ago, but left the vents. The one in the entryway sits right above our storage room, so we simply lift the vent cover and bring up and down the boxes.

Mr. Kitty’s handsome black coat is especially appropriate in this month.

Opening up the fall/Halloween boxes is always like finding old friends again. I usually forget some of what’s in there during the months they are in storage, old friends like the beautiful table runner my friend Esther made for me several years ago.
Fall colors complement our house’s old, dark, wide woodwork about as well as any season’s colors do. I believe our house is at its most beautiful in the fall and at Christmas.

So bring on the jack o’lanterns! Maybe this year I’ll actually get Mr. Black Kitty to pose with them. Wouldn’t that be a great addition to our decorations next year?

Great Fall of 2008

Early October. Indian summer. Leaves changing colors with each stroke of God’s brush. All is well with the world. I [Steve] tuck myself into bed after a glorious day.

Midnight alert. I am hungry; I am thirsty. Out of bed. Upstairs for food and drink. Going back downstairs. Lose balance. The Great Fall of 2008.

My wife, Patty, heard a loud thumping noise at midnight and came running. To her horror, she saw that I had fallen down the stairs yet again. There I was at the bottom of the stairs. I had fallen from about the fifth stair from the bottom. With gravity and physics being what they are, the fall’s effect was magnified 10 times.

My wife and I are continually suffering accidents. We’re not those extreme sports people who are expected to have extreme injuries. We are simply trying to make our way through life. People will tell you we are terrific wimps. Don’t believe them. We are true Victims of Pain.

I was transporting my beverage in a large insulated cup. The really hard, brittle plastic type. Not the soft squish-as-you-wish plastic. Upon impact the cup shattered into devilish shards which slashed long bloody scratches into my abdomen. I landed hard on the right side of my ribcage, the cage which God had the foresight to create to protect one’s heart. My knees had multiple layers of skin burned off
(i.e., they were scraped). The tip of one finger was painfully smashed. But most dramatic of all was the fork event. I had been carrying a fork which complemented the consumption of food. The seemingly-innocent eating instrument I had been carrying showed its true nature and embedded itself into my chin. I released my hand from it, but it remained in my chin. A little tug and it decided to come out under such physical duress. Its departure was followed by copious amounts of blood.

I am not making up any part of this Great Fall. The fork incident may have been the strangest, grossest thing that has ever happened to me. Ironically, it was the only injury which never caused me pain.

Patty got me to bed, cleaned up the blood, patched up my knees, and stuck cotton balls into the holes in my chin. (I am exaggerating here.) She gave me a peck on the forehead and said, in a sweet little voice, “Remember, Honey, it’s through pain by which we grow.” (Oh, I guess she said this after the visit to the doctor. What do I know what she said that night? I was nearly comatose from shock and pain.)

Though she said this, Patty and I are actually both very sensitive people, and the Witness of Pain suffers just as much the Victim of Pain.

Anyway, four full days passed with incredibly painful ribs and knees. Actually the ribs didn’t hurt too much if I kept my body perfectly still in certain positions to which my ribs did not object. Any movement, though, was knife-stabbing pain.

On the fifth day my ribs suddenly started feeling much better. I would not have gone to the doctor except I had already made the appointment.

I went to the doctor’s office. After they did much poking and prodding around my ribs, I have returned to my original pain level. I hate when they push down somewhere and you nearly jump through the ceiling. They push down again and casually ask, “Is this where it hurts?” Push. Another jump. “Right there, eh?”

In writing this, I am not looking for sympathy, though greatly earned. I also did not fall in order to have a blog entry on Roxie’s site. I am writing about the Great Fall of 2008 simply to help you, the reader. I want to use my pain for your benefit. If you should ever fracture or bruise a rib, follow these instructions:

1. Don’t move.

2. Don’t see a doctor. Other than inducing further pain, a doctor can do nothing to treat your injury.

3. Take sleeping pills and avoid wakefulness at all costs.

4. For pain, take two aspirin with Coca-Cola while listening to rock-n-roll or popular jazz. WARNING: This is not an FDA-approved treatment. Avoid heavy machinery, sharp objects and stairways during use of this treatment. Possible side effects may include, but are not limited to, runny nose, stinging eyes, systemic rash, migraine
headaches, rib pain, heart failure or death.

5. Never cough, sneeze, or hiccup. Boy, does that hurt.

By the way, I am currently pricing in-home elevators.

Blogging chain

Sometimes I look at the links from my favorite blogs and see where they might lead me. Yesterday I found one called “Street Watch: Notes of a Paramedic.” Peter’s writing is truly outstanding. Since my mother was a nurse, I have a lifelong interest in medical stories, although I never aspired to be in medicine.

I arrived “Street Watch” from “A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver’s” blogroll.

I found him on “Bayou Renaissance Man’s” blogroll.

Yesterday’s post was inspired by one of “Bayou’s” posts.

“Bayou” comes from “Notes from the American Outback” on my own blogroll. Rio Arriba, “Notes’” blogger, kindly often comments here.

I enjoy every one of these blogs and hope you will too. To save myself the time and bother of clicking through all those links, I’ll probably add them to my own blogroll the next time I start tinkering with my template.

Oh the horror!

Bayou Renaissance Man’s horror story about his toilet reminded me of a couple of our own.

At one of the newspapers we formerly owned, a lady asked to use the toilet. She was a larger, larger lady. After she left, I went to the bathroom. When I sat down, the toilet bucked me off. I didn’t know that toilets could be bucking broncos, but this one certainly was. Until we could get a repairman, we had to approach the “throne” very gingerly.

Several years later, I noticed that our bathroom toilet was loose. Sitting on it gave its occupant an uneasy feeling, a new definition for rock and roll. Hubby called a plumber, but he arrived too late to save us from disaster.

House’s previous occupants had installed shag carpet throughout most of the house, including the bathroom. The toilet leaked all over this shag carpet. The floorboards were sopping wet as well. The stench was indescribable. Carpet and flooring had to go!

I had longed to rid our house of the awful carpet for several years. That calamity got it out of our bathroom. We had to install a new toilet and new linoleum.

That was the first step in a complete carpet removal project. Sometimes bad circumstances result in good outcomes.

Go Big Red!

Standing with Herbie Husker in 1994. I chased
him down so I could have my picture taken
with the Husker mascot.

My mother, my sister-in-love (standing) and me wearing Husker jackets my mother had made for Christmas 1996.

Through the magic of television, I will visit Mecca today. No, not the place in Saudi Arabia. To me and to millions of other Nebraskans living in the state and in exile, Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Neb., is Mecca, the heart of Huskerdom forever.

Husker football is a birthright to those of us born in Nebraska. We love our football team.

On game days, no shopping center broadcasts anything other than the Husker football broadcast. Otherwise, no one would come to shop.

We had a pastor from California for a time. He scheduled the annual church picnic on a game day. Someone brought a radio. Everyone sat around the table glued to the broadcast. He was upset that no one would participate in any activities, but he didn’t understand Nebraskans’ devotion to their team.

I didn’t understand the depths of my own feeling for the Huskers until I had the privilege of standing on the sidelines in 1994. The band was performing its pregame show as Hubby and I stood on the sidelines. When the band marched to the sidelines to perform its final number, probably “Hail Varsity”, a trumpeter stood just inches from my face. His uniform dripped with gold braid and his trumpet shone so bright that I was nearly blinded. As we stood there, him playing and me listening, tears began streaming down my face. I was so upset with myself. I was a media professional! How could I be crying?

I’m not sure I can explain that, even to myself, but Nebraska football has been part of the fabric of my life for as long as I can remember.

For me, Husker football is my dad working in the yard with earphones on so he could hear the game. It’s my mother with her roster making sure she knew who each player was. It’s listening to my grandmother, normally a very sweet and kind lady, exhorting the Blackshirts to “get him! Get that (quarterback/running back/return man).” It’s pouring over the Omaha World-Herald to get every scrap of Husker news or, as I do now, reading every link on HuskerPedia.com.

It’s thinking “Boomer Sooner”, the Oklahoma fight song, is the advertising jingle for the local RV dealer. “Porta potty, porta potty, Sleepy has your porta-pot!” For several years I wondered why Oklahoma’s band was always playing Sleepy Dick’s song.

It’s watching my parents and grandparents going wild when NU beat Oklahoma in 1971’s Game of the Century. It’s being ecstatic when Tom Osborne’s Huskers finally defeated the Sooners in 1978 and being depressed when Missouri upset the Huskers the next week.

It’s knowing what the Bummeroosky, Bounceroosky and Fumbleroosky are. My friend Dennis actually got to witness the Bounceroosky. I am envious!

It’s being in deep emotional pain when Turner Gill’s two-point conversion pass bounced off Jeff Smith’s shoulder pads in the 1984 Orange Bowl. It’s crying tears of pure joy when Cory Schlesinger scored a touchdown in that same end zone in the 1995 Orange Bowl. It’s being slumped in front of the TV in depressed disbelief over 62-36 at Colorado in 2001 or 70-10 at Texas Tech in 2004.

Nebraska football is indeed my birthright and even part of my identity. When I lived back east, Nebraska meant football. No one knew anything about the state except that Nebraska had a great football team. Wearing NU gear showed pride in my roots, my home, my family. It still does. After all, eight generations of my family have called Nebraska home, the first generation settling there even before statehood.

Husker football isn’t the same dominant program it once was, but I believe we’re headed back upward again. I’m proud to root for the Scarlet and Cream. Even though I’ve lived out of state for more years than I lived in Nebraska, some part of me will always call Huskerdom my home.

Go Big Red!

Drinking apple cider

I miss Virginia in the spring and fall. I can do without Virginia summers and winters, but every year I long to see the flowering trees in the spring and the colorful leaves in the fall.

Every year I lived in Virginia, I made sure to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway at least once in October. I loved the winding roads and mountain views drenched in gorgeous fall colors.

One fine October day, Irene and I took that drive. We basked in the scenery, stopping to walk several trails. The day turned quite warm and we became quite thirsty.

Virginia’s Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions are dotted with produce stands. One stand had a large hand-lettered sign reading “APPLE CIDER”. We thought fresh apple cider sounded heavenly, the perfect thirst quencher.

We stopped and bought some, then drank it in gulps as we drove along. We were so parched that sipping was out of the question.

After awhile, the road began to look a bit hazy and fuzzy. Neither of us were sure which lane was which and we were very groggy.

Then the reality of our situation dawned on us: We had just purchased hard apple cider. We were both far too tipsy to continue driving.

Instead of continuing our journey, we had to stop at an abandoned gas station to sleep it off.

We were very cautious afterward to make sure which kind of cider we purchased.

Survival of the '70s

A few days ago, some of my students came to class in Kiss and Led Zeppelin T-shirts. I could not believe my eyes. Another one showed up Wednesday wearing an Alice Cooper T-shirt.

Kiss? Led Zeppelin? Alice Cooper?

I was never much for metal, but my friend Cathy was a big metalhead, as were my best friend Jean’s brothers. Kiss and Led Zeppelin were high on their list of favorites, although they never cracked mine. Metal was never my choice of music. “Beth” was the only Kiss song I ever liked. Alice Cooper grossed out all my friends.

I can’t imagine wearing Pat Boone T-shirts when I was a high school kid. Maybe an Elvis shirt, but nothing else from any time period other than the 1970s. Those oldies were total has beens.

Recently I heard a music professor on the radio. He said that music stopped improving in 1974, that nothing good had been published since then. That position is a bit extreme for me. I like/d disco. I thought it was fun music and I still do.

I enjoyed a lot of the ’80s music as well, but, looking back, it had a sameness to it that ’70s music didn’t have. Hubby heard a program several years ago where the DJ played numerous ’80s tunes to the same beat. And they all fit.

’90s music and the new stuff the students play today seem like a vast wasteland. Is there nothing original?

The appearance of classic metal bands seems to validate my opinion.

What's Love Got to Do with It?

When I was in college, my social life was pretty lame. I had lots of “brothers”, but hardly any boyfriends. I had some men ask me out, but they were not generally men I wanted to date. I worked in sports information and spent most of my weekends on the sideline at some game. I didn’t enjoy the privilege of going out with some good-looking man afterward. No guy stood at the press box door waiting for me.

My friend Laura shared the same problem, except she didn’t have games to occupy her weekends. One day, we were bemoaning our single, dateless state when she began talking about what her wedding would be like.

“If I ever get married,” she said, “I think I’ll walk down the aisle to Tina Turner singing, ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’ I think I’ll dress in black, too. After all, it seems that I’ll have to pay someone to marry me!”

“That would be funny,” I said. “Let’s do it! That would be better than walking down the aisle to the traditional ‘Wedding March’. I have no desire to have everyone in church thinking ‘Here comes the bride, big, fat and wide. Where is the groom? Hiding in a room!’”

I lost touch with Laura after she graduated and have no idea if she ever married or not.

During our engagement, I told Hubby this story. “What do you think of this idea?” I asked. He wouldn’t let me use Tina Turner’s song, but I didn’t walk down the aisle to the traditional wedding march, either.

After all, when I married him, love had everything to do with it.