A new pair of shoes???

Interesting new boot wouldn't you say?

Actually if my accident were videotaped it would probably make in America's Funnies Videos or whatever the name of that show is called. It was rather hilarious, painful but hilarious! Yesterday, June 14-Flag Day, I was working outside quite a bit of the day. I pressure washed the deck and it looks brand new! With all the rain we have been having sooner or later we have to empty what water gets into the jacuzzi. It has been empty since last November. There was about five gallons of water in the bottom so I was going to empty it out. I have pressure washed the inside of the cover and the inside of the jacuzzi. I had a 3 gallon bucket in my right hand and was just stepping inside the jacuzzi. I had my left foot on the top step and was leaning over to put my bucket down inside when all of the sudden my foot slipped and I was going headfirst down into the jacuzzi!

It happened so fast! I've cleaned that jacuzzi so many times and have never fallen or slipped until yesterday! Well they say that things comes in threes. I have now had three falls and hope that's it! I keep my balance very well. After the past month, now I'm not so sure! I was coming downstairs a month ago and my mind was a thousand miles away thinking of all I had to do that day and I completely missed the last step and was 'launched onto the floor! Splat!' No harm no injury! A week later I'm out on the deck outside and on my way off the steps to do a chore and I missed the last step! Ouch! That hurt! I landed on the top of my left foot and now have a quarter sized scar from the burn I got. It was like getting a carpet burn only from the step on the deck. Hmm. There seems to be a pattern here. My mind is in the stratosphere instead of 'on the ground!' Actually I came down from space 'onto' the ground! Then yesterday I was being careful and was taken by surprise when I went 'head first' down into the jacuzzi! I have to tell you that hurt! There's no water to break your fall. It's surprising how fast your mind clicks! I shot out my arms to break my fall. It's a wonder that I didn't crash on top of the bucket that was now at the bottom of the jacuzzi as well! My arms grabbed onto the sides of the seats where you sit in the jacuzzi. They smacked down hard. I vaguely remember my right foot smacking the top edge of the jacuzzi. See, it would have make a great funny video! My right forearm really hurt. Well I stood up to make sure all my limbs worked. Aside from them smarting quite a bit, everything worked! So it took me 10 minutes to clean out the jacuzzi.

When I got up to get out I realized how bad my right foot hurt. Then I looked down and saw this huge goose egg on the top of my foot above the ankle. I went in and showered and then had dad take me to Urgent Care. I was pretty sure I didn't break my foot but I wanted to be sure there was no fracture. They x-rayed it and I had a slight sprain and a badly bruised bone, a goose on the bone! I have to be on crutches for 4 days and then I should be okay.

Talk about feeling like a clutz!

When Grandma What A Little Girl #9

Story #9 - The Hoover Vacuum Cleaner business and naughty little twins! Oh My!
Have you ever put on a skit for your family or just for yourself or your brothers and sisters or friends?

My brother Douglas and his friend Larry Cunningham were buddies. Their family lived about 3 blocks away from us. A few years later their family bought one of the houses my dad built that was behind us.

We had a swimming pool that my dad built but after a few years we lost interest in swimming in it and it was left empty, no water in it. So my brother Douglas and his friend Larry decided to have a skit and create their own play business. They were probably about 12 or 13 years old. So that meant I was probably about 9 years old. They built a set and strung a rope across the middle of the pool with an old blanket thrown across to make an office space. They had little desk made out of boxes. They were ‘Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Salesman.’ They had my mom’s old Hoover vacuum and they made an office and it was pretty cool.

Well, they didn’t like my twin brother and I hanging around there. We ‘weren’t allowed’ in there without permission. We did not like that rule very well. We felt ‘left out!’ One morning my brother Gayle and I went up the street to where Larry and his family lived. Larry had a younger brother Lewis that was our age and two younger sisters, Linda and Pam. We knocked on the door and nobody answered. The door wasn’t locked. (Growing up when I was young, people did not lock their doors. We did not have problems with people breaking in and stealing from you. You felt pretty safe. It’s not like today were you have to lock you doors because people will break in.) Well, we went in and called out to see if anybody was home but no one answered. We should have turned right around and went home! We should have never even gone IN their house in the first place! I got the bright idea to ‘look around.’ I was curious! Larry’s dad Leroy smoked cigarettes. He smoked a lot. I looked into a kitchen cupboard and found some small packs of matches. I took some. We should not have; it was wrong! It was stealing! We took them without asking. We knew better. We left their house and as we went out the front door I said something like, ‘goodbye and we’ll see ya later.’ I said that in case any neighbors were looking. (What a pair of naughty twins we were!) My brother and I went home. Then we thought, 'We’re going to be in trouble because we know we’re not supposed to play with matches and mom will wonder where we got them.’ So we had to get rid of the evidence! So we went to the pool where Douglas and Larry built the set for their vacuum cleaner office. We climbed down into the pool. Like ‘ naughty little twins’ we lit the matches and burned little holes in the curtain they had and in their cardboard props. Then we threw the match stubs down and left.

---Talk about being dumb!
We burned holes in things and then threw the matches down! (Right now as your Grandma is writing this I am laughing myself silly at how dumb we were! Not to mention what little demons we were!)

You can guess what happened next!
Gayle and I were in the house playing and minding our own business and my brother Douglas stormed into the house and told my mom what happened to his set he built in the pool and how it had to be the ‘twins’ that did it! My mom went out to ‘inspect the ruins.’ I can remember thinking my twin brother and I should hide, but we weren’t quick enough. My mom charged back into the house and called both of us out and marched us straight to the pool! ‘Guilt’ was written all over our faces! The first thing she asked was if we did the damage! We nodded our heads and said, ‘yes.’ We looked pretty scared. We knew we were in deep trouble! Then she asked, ‘Where did you get those matches?’ We told her about going to Larry’s house and taking them out of the cupboard. Then she made us tell Larry’s mom what we did. That was awful! I don’t know how my twin brother Gayle felt, but I can tell you I felt like the biggest criminal in the world and I would go straight to jail for what I did! I vaguely remember that Dolores, Larry’s mom, wasn’t too upset and that we were just kids. That is NOT how my mom felt however. We had to clean up the mess. Well, first we had to apologize to Douglas and Larry for what we did, then we cleaned up the mess and we got spanked and we were grounded! We never did anything like ever again!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #8

Story #8 - The Tree House and I nearly lost my finger!
Have you ever played in a tree house?

We didn’t have any huge trees on our property where I grew up. So, my dad decided to build a “Crows’ Nest.” You might wonder just exactly what a Crows’ Nest is. It’s a tree house built on top of a telephone pole. The term Crows Next comes from a ship where there is a lookout on the main mast and the sailors could look out and see across the water and look out for other ships or find land on the horizon.

My dad got a telephone pole and dug a hole and set it in concrete. It was very stable. I can’t remember exactly how tall the pole was. When you are 7 or 8 years old it probably looked 15 feet tall! It probably was only about 10 feet tall. My dad built a tree house. It had four walls and I think it had two open windows. The windows were just famed in and left open. The tree house was probably about 5-feet square and 5-feet tall. He built the floor first and then the walls and roof. He cut a trap door in the floor so we could go in and out of it. It had a rope we had to climb up into it. I remember my two older brothers Geoffrey and Douglas could climb that rope pretty quick. I think my twin brother Gayle did too. I had a little harder time climbing in and out. My dad put a few pole rungs in the pole so I could climb part way. I remember it being so much fun to be up in the Crows Nest! We could see everywhere! It was so cool! The rope was about 1-inch thick. We had a knot tied at the bottom and would put a piece of 2-inch pipe that was about 18-inches long through the knothole. It was about 3 feet above the ground. We would swing and it was fun!

One day I was swinging on the pipe swing. My mom called us in for dinner. My mom did not like us being late for dinner. When my dad came home he expected dinner on the table at 5:00p.m. So I decided I would hang upside and drop from the pipe onto the ground and that’s what I did. What I didn’t count on was the pipe slipping 'out of the rope knot' and falling to the ground. I remember vividly letting go of the rope and hanging from my knees upside down and letting my hands fall to the ground and then my feet. “OUCH!” I remember my hands were on the ground and the next second the pipe crashed down on top of my finger. It was my ring finger on my left hand, the one where you wear a wedding band. I thought my finger was cut off! My finger was bleeding. The bone was showing and I screamed and cried and ran into the house. The cut was just above the middle knuckle on my finger. My mom looked at it and cleaned it up and rushed me down to the clinic. I had not cut off my finger. But when you think about it, there is only a little bit of skin covering your fingers so there is not much protection covering the bone in your fingers.

I was pretty lucky my finger wasn’t broken or cut off. The cut was about 1-inch long. I remember getting a shot to numb my finger and feeling the vibration of the needle going in and out sewing the cut closed. I didn’t watch the doc sew it up. He put a bandage on it and we went home. I remember it throbbed when the numbness wore off. I had to wear my finger bandaged for a while. It didn’t keep me from playing though! I still have the scar today and I do remember how it got it!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl-Story #7

Story #7 - Collecting Coke Bottles for penny candy
We did not get an allowance when I was a little girl growing up. My father worked hard and mom made everything. My brothers and I would collect coke bottles and turn them into the store. I am trying to remember how much we got per bottle. I think it was 2 cents. It did not just have to be coke bottles it could be any soda pop bottle. The coke bottles were more plentiful. We would look along side the road or in the ditches for the bottles. People were careless and threw trash out of their cars onto the ground or roadside. There was a store called Fields Grocery about half a mile down the road from where we lived. We would walk down to the store and turn in the coke bottles. We could get the money or get candy in exchange. Well since we rarely ever got store bought candy, I always took the candy! Back then candy was only one cent or two cents. A candy bar was 5 cents. A coke cost 10 cents. A loaf of bread was 25 cents and a gallon of milk was 50 cents. If I turned in three coke bottles, that was worth six cents. That bought a lot of candy!

I remember that they sold two cinnamon hot sticks for 5 cents. They were cinnamon lollipops were red, square shaped and on a stick. They were hot as the cinnamon kind of burned like Red Hots. Red Hots were candies they sold too that came in a box and they cost 5 cents. They were cinnamon flavored and red in color and shaped like red beads or dots. It was a fun daring other kids to keep their cinnamon lollipop in their mouth as long as they could without taking it out. I could never leave it in my mouth for more than one minute. My eyes would water, my tongue burned and I had to breathe!

Some of my favorite candy was wax lips, teeth or the mustache; they came out during Halloween. Another wax candy was little soda pop bottles that were about 2-inches tall and less than ½ an inch wide. They had flavored liquid inside. They were 5 cents for a little six-pack in a soda carton. They were cute and fun to eat and drink. The wax was edible but we mostly chewed it and then spit it out when we were tired of chewing it. It was like chewing gum. I also liked the ‘dots’. They were dots of candy on paper. The paper was 1 -1/2-inches wide and 4 inches long. They had one flavor on each sheet. There would be about 5 dots across the paper and about 10 to 12 rows long. The orange dots were orange flavored and pink was cherry flavored. I used to pretend they were pills. I would play doctor and the dots were pills you could take. They also had two for 1 cent candy. I often got that kind because I got more candy! Zero was one of my favorite candy bars. They also had little penny tootsie rolls and other penny candy. A large Tootsie Roll was five cents.

My dad liked Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars. One day he brought an Almond Joy candy bar home for me. I tasted it and ‘yuck’ I spit it out! I did not like the taste of coconut! He laughed! I don’t know how old I was before I finally liked the taste of coconut. But now, I love eating Almond Joys and Mounds candy bars! I would have to say that today my favorite candy bar is either 5th Avenue or a Butterfinger. They taste a lot alike. Yummy!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl-cont'd

Story #6 - Swinging from the Pear Trees just like Tarzan
My father, your great grandfather Douglas Bates, worked as a Civil Engineer at Holloman Air Force Base. When he and my mother and the two little boys Geoffrey and Douglas Jr. moved west, he found employment at the Air Base. ( When he was a young married man and they lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he worked in carpentry and was very good at it. My dad always enjoyed working with his hands and was very good.) When he had time when he came home from work out at the base, he helped a friend of his work on his house that was about half a mile up the road from where we lived. Then my dad decided he wanted to build some houses and make extra money to support his family. For a couple of years, every day after he got home from his full time job on the base he built 3 houses on the acreage we owned behind our house. We owned 3 acres and only lived on ¾ of an acre.

In the back of the acreage off on the west side, we had about six pear trees growing. My brothers and I had a lot of fun playing in those pear trees. The trees were only about 8 feet tall. The six trees were planted somewhat close together. Their branches are not too thick. Pear trees are somewhat flimsy, but when you’re only about 7 years old, the branches hold up pretty good. I was quite a tomboy when I was young. I had two older brothers and a twin brother and no sisters. Now you can see why I was not a prissy little girl. I wanted to be a boy like my brothers and often acted like a boy. How unladylike! I was pretty good at climbing trees. By the way, my mom, your grandmother, told me that she was also a tomboy when she was a girl, up until she turned 14. I was a tomboy until I turned 13.

I kept getting braver and braver trying to swing from one branch to another. I had seen the movie ‘Tarzan’ on television (it was in black and white, color TV. had not come around yet). In my mind I thought I could swing just as good as Tarzan could. I would reach out as far as I could and grab a branch in the neighboring tree. That was way fun! Well, one day I was just a little over confident and did not watch my step as good as I should have. I missed a step on one branch while reaching over my head for another branch and fell out of the tree! I had been about 6 feet up in the tree and now I was on my back on the ground. I had the wind knocked out of me! The one remaining hand that was holding onto a branch suddenly was ripped loose when my foot stepped off the branch that I was standing on. I got scrapped up on my arms and legs. I was wearing shorts and that didn’t offer any protection to my bare legs. Nobody was around to help me. I got up off the ground and cried all the way home. It was a wonder I did not get any of my teeth knocked out or break my arm or leg or neck!

The cure we got in those days for cuts and abrasions was something called ‘Methiolate.’ OUCH! That stuff burned and stung like no other! My brothers and I hated having that painted on as it almost hurt worse than our injury! They also had a product called ‘Mercurochrome.’ That was so much better as it did not burn. But, my mom said if it didn’t sting it probably didn’t work as good. Oh brother! We all cried many times getting that stuff on! As far as climbing the trees…that little accident falling out didn’t stop me. I kept right on climbing trees and now and then got scrapes, but oh what fun I had!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl-cont'd

Opinion Poll-
Everyone seemed to want bi-weekly posts and so that's what I'll do. In a way that is good I guess as I have not figured out yet, or explored to be more accurate, about a link to 'click on.'
I took off My Favorite Things as I didn't post the whole story, sorry. The 'entire' story is now on! :o)



Story #5 - My favorite things
Do you have a most favorite toy or game you like better than anything else?

When I was little my two most favorite toys were a panda, and a teddy bear. My first stuffed animal was a panda bear. I also liked playing with tea sets. I thought it was fun to have my very own little dishes. I had fun playing with them. By far though, my panda and teddy were my most favorite ever things that I had!

Back to my panda. I named him ‘Snookie.’ I don’t know how I came up with that name, but it just seemed to ‘fit’. My panda was about 10-inches tall and was sewn into a sitting position. It did not stand tall. I ‘dearly loved’ that panda. I’m not sure what happened to it. I do remember though how much I loved that panda bear. When I was 10-years old I got a big tan teddy bear for Christmas! I named him ‘Cookie.’ The name just seemed to ‘fit’ him perfectly.

I have to back up this story to one year earlier. My mother loved to sew and her mom (your great, great grandmother Jane Galbraith Short) was a professional seamstress. She helped to earn a living by sewing for people. My mother also liked to sew. She also ‘loved’ dolls. My mom said that when she was a young girl she loved dolls and would line them all up on her bed and pretend and play ‘school’ with them and read them stories. She loved dressing her dolls!

One year for Christmas she got me a big doll and named her Hepsibah. I did not have a name in mind so I didn’t mind if my mom had a name for the doll. The doll was the size of a one-year old child. She made dresses for it to match dresses she made for me. The only problem was, on Christmas morning when I saw the doll I was ‘so disappointed.’ My mother was so excited she hid behind a chair to see my expression. She loved the doll and thought I would be just as excited. After all, little girls like playing with dolls. Well, not me. I was more of a tomboy and liked boy things more than girly things and dolls. She saw my disappointment when I saw the doll and had picked it up and put it down and looked around to see what else I got for Christmas. It almost broke her heart! I told her how disappointed I was that I got a dumb old doll. Boy, what an ungrateful and horrible child I was! I had no idea how that hurt her and how it disappointed her that I did not like dolls. I guess because she liked dolls, she thought I did too. How wrong she was! (Sorry mom.) I told her that what I really wanted was a big teddy bear and I loved teddy bears.

The very next year for Christmas I got what I wanted! When I looked under the tree to see what I got, I saw this big box. When I opened it, there inside the box was a big, beautiful teddy bear! I grabbed it out of the box and was so thrilled! I hugged my mom and told her how happy I was and that I just loved teddy bears! I knew she got the message! I named him ‘Cookie.’ I loved that bear to death. It was my very best friend. I could hug it, kiss it, and tell all my problems and sorrows as well as happy times to my bear. Cookie just listened and was never critical, he just loved me, or at least I thought so. Its’ magical how only you and your bear can talk to each other and nobody else can hear what your bear is saying to you.I still have that bear today. Cookie has had most of his fur loved off of him, but he’s still my ever faithful bear! He is 46 ½ years old!

An Opinion Poll-please help

I need your opinion---
I would like all of you to comment on whether I should -
1-continue to post 'When Grandma Was A Little Girl... on a biweekly basis
- or -
2-click on a link and read them from there.

Please answer.
-----

I have put together a list of 60 topics so far to write about. I am only on story #16. I thought maybe it might be easier to just click on a link from my blog page and go to the source to read whenever you felt like it. Then Lisa mentioned she likes reading them on the blog and she can copy them and save them if she wants. She thought I should blog and ask your opinion.

Love ya!
Mom :o)