Chickens and Ducks and Quail. Oh My!

Back to the farm days ---

Among the animals that mom and dad raised, they raised a lot of chickens.  They were not my favorite at all, they were so "messy".   They would buy the baby chicks and they were kept on the closed in back porch type area with heat lamps on them.  I do not remember how long we had to keep them on the porch, but it seemed a while.  We constantly heard their peep, peep, peep.  They were cute, but there were so many. They would peck each other's behinds and she had to put this medicine on them that was red and looked sort of like tar and that kept them from doing that.  In my opinion, this was gross.  As cute as they were, actually a lot about them was gross to me. As they grew, they were kept outside in their large fenced in  pen. We had two roosting houses.

I did not like to gather the eggs either.  I never liked sticking my hands under the roosting chickens or even walking in the houses. You never really knew what you would find in there.  Some of the eggs were pretty gross too.  My sister agreed to let me just carry the basket, but we could not get out of there soon enough for me!  I guess I am a wimp.  I did not even like eggs anyway.  Unless, of course, if they were in a brownie or something. I do not much care for the taste of eggs today either.

The chickens would grow up and it would be time to "harvest" them.  At least that is what I call it.  At first, it was not bad and was actually quite fun because we had duties according to age. Naturally, my little brother and I had an easy job, it was sort of cool, too.  A lot of family came out and helped at this time.  Okay, this is not meant to offend anyone, if you are please just do not read it.  It was the way of life.  The older men would get the chickens and remove their heads.  That quote about running around like a chicken with your head off is a true statement!  Those chickens took off!  My brother and I were right behind them.  Some of them ran down the hills into the woods.  So, we are weird I guess, but when you were a little kid, that was sort of fun. We chased them all around and some of them went pretty far! I am sorry, but it was also pretty odd to see, at least in a child's eye.  Think about it, the trauma of having your head chopped off and you then take off running?  You cannot even see where you are going!  How in the world can you run and why would you even try? I was told it was a reflex/reaction, but what a horrid reflex to have. Looking back on it, what a terrible thing to witness. Our generation was probably accustomed to it, but the kids today may have nightmares from that.  I am sure we saw a lot of things back then that they would have no idea about. As a matter of fact, I am absolutely certain that I could not do half of the things that I did back then!

This part is the worst.  We carried the chickens to the ladies and they took them by the feet and dipped them into very hot water.  That smell of those wet feathers....once you smell that, you will never ever forget that smell.  It was the most unpleasant smell. You could even say it was foul....pardon the pun (f-o-w-l, haha.) To this day, sometimes when I eat chicken, I feel like I can taste that smell.  I cannot finish eating it then.  I guess this will be a lifetime issue with me. Your taste does depend on your smell as well, you know.  Researchers say 80% of the flavors we taste come from what we smell, which is why foods become relatively flavorless when our sinuses are stopped up.  I always have to explain myself when I tell someone that the chicken tastes like feathers. I have been able to "teach" my family that point, however.  When they eat the piece of chicken that I refused to eat, they can taste the difference, too. At the moment, I have not had chicken for quite some time because lately they all seem to be smelling/tasting like feathers. Here is a side note, when we were children, we use to get milk straight from the cow and there was this taste that it had that was not so great.  I am assuming the pasteurization may have taken some of that out, I do not know. Occasionally when you buy milk today, some batches have that taste in there that you can detect.  I then say this milk tastes like it came from a cow.  Try explaining that statement.  People just laugh at me. Some have said dang, hate when it tastes like it came from a cow!  Haha.  I still try to explain myself.  My family has now learned that taste too.  Haven't you ever had a potato and it seemed you could taste the dirt?  I hope you can understand what I mean here.  Sorry about getting off track a bit, but back to the chickens... They had to dip the chicken in the water to make the plucking easier.  When I grew up and this became my task, I hated it!  That smell.....yuck.  The feathers did come out pretty easy, though, but then there were the pin feathers and they were harder to remove and you never actually got them all, not even close.

The chickens were cut up and frozen for later use.  I grew up and had to participate in this part as well. I will not go into all of the details of that, but it, for me, was not as bad as the plucking, but I really did not like this job either.  I could not stand the sounds of the popping and snapping. (When I go to the chiropractor, I tell them to try to do what they need with no "popping of my bones".To this day they have not popped anything. This may be why I cringe when I hear people popping their knuckles.) There were many more unpleasant things about this job, but we will forego them. After harvesting, it would be quite some time before I could stomach eating chicken.  I surely did love my mother's fried chicken, though. It was the best and my favorite meal! Well, not when you would get the occasional piece that tasted like feathers! Haha! That meal was fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes and corn! Most of the time, homemade biscuits accompanied the meal. However, have any of you noticed that the chicken does not taste like it did back then?  Actually none of the meat today is as good as back then.  Hamburger is the most noticeable, it does not even smell as good as it use to.

We had ducks as well, two of them.  I have no idea why.  I guess for the novelty.  They were funny, though.  We would play with them and they would follow us around.  I guess mom and dad just wanted ducks.  Is there a reason for having them?  Does anyone know about that?  Do they assist with chickens somehow? We did have fun watching them waddle around.  I just do not know what their purpose was other than being a duck. Do not get me wrong, that is purpose enough. They were snow white and absolutely beautiful!

Mom and dad loved to eat quail!  They had an opportunity to purchase some of them so they did. My brothers also hunted quail.  Remember in the old days when you would see quail and pheasants running down the road?  I cannot remember the last time I have seen a quail or a pheasant.  I wonder why that is?  I miss them being in abundance like they use to be.  Perhaps it is due to the abundance of coyotes that we do not not?  Anyway, harvest day for the quail came.  Mom and dad had them captured in one of the roosting houses.  Everyone came out that day and were ready to help.  Mom opened the front door to get them but I guess my little brother had a different idea.  As they opened the front door to get some, he threw open the back door.  Quail were going everywhere! People were going everywhere after them!  I just wish all of these things could have been on video.  Such a funny sight to see.  They lost most of the quail.  Funny thing, they did not seem to be all that angry because my little brother did not get into too much trouble.  I remember mom and dad fondly telling the story in later years and just laughing and laughing about him doing that.  On the bright side, at least my brothers would have more quail to find when they went hunting!

This "harvesting" of animals was a learning experience, but I am pretty sure I would be just as good without having some of these memories.  The butcher is good enough for me. Sometimes seeing some of that stuff makes my stomach a bit queasy as well.  It is pretty neat that mom and dad dabbled in so many things. They probably would not refer to it as dabbling.  They were probably trying to make a living and feed their children.  I am sure it was an awful lot of hard work for them. In my opinion, since I was a child, life was so interesting and such fun. There was always something go on and life seemed so exciting.

This is one of the chicken coops/roosting house.  To the right of the picture is a huge fenced in pen.  Behind this is another roosting house.  My older and younger brother are pictured here.

God Made Me Ice Cream Cones!

The snow is so beautiful!  I absolutely love it!  Everything becomes blanketed in white.  The sounds are different, hard to explain, but just not the same.  They are sort of hushed.  The snow falling makes a noise itself, the limbs sway and sort of make a crackling noise, the crunch of walking on the snow and the sound tires and snow plows make are all nice to hear. It feels warmer outside as if it is God's insulation.
I love, love, love it at night time.  The snow is God's big night light to me.  You can see everything outside.  I do not like night time so well anyway so the snow makes it better for me.  I also love to hear the plows come by at night even if it wakes me up.  You can see the animal tracks and know that deer have been at your house while you were sleeping.
My pastor, my friend Dorothy's son,  told me long ago that white is a sign of purity and that may be another reason to like snow.  Watching the snow fall is such a peaceful, calming thing to see. It is like living in a snow globe.  I always say, "someone is shaking my house"! The children get to build snowmen, snow forts, have snowball fights and go sledding.  Their laughter is the best.   Snow can be such fun....and then there is snow ice cream and cancelled school days.
Yes, snow is cold and wet.  Yes, it is terrible to have to work outside in it and I feel sorry for those people.  Yes, the roads can be bad and that does worry me, but put those aside and I am sure you all would have to admit that snow is absolutely beautiful!

Bowling Alley Bloopers

I absolutely cannot bowl… at all!  I have never stopped trying, though.  In high school I would go bowling with my friends.  I did not get to do this for long as the owner asked me to not bowl there any longer.  I am sure others bowl how I do, but I never improved. Sometimes I would release the ball as it was heading backward and it would go sailing behind me.  I had a knack for releasing the ball at the wrong time and it would rise high into the air and hit the lanes with a terrible crash.  I could never keep my wrist straight.  I have the same problem throwing a frisbee.  Being a baby boomer, frisbees were a big thing. I could only watch. Try as I might, it always went to the left or right and never straight.  When you curve like this while throwing a bowling ball, your ball will jump two to three lanes over.  This is the reason the owner had the unpleasant task of asking me to please not bowl any longer.  I complied and just would watch my friends bowl. Much later in life, I mentioned that to the owner who was always a very, very sweet man.  He questioned me that he did it and said he felt absolutely terrible and he was so sorry.  I laughed and laughed and told him not to feel terrible at all, he really had no choice.  It is fortunate that I never injured anyone with my wild tosses. He thought that felt so mean of him to do.  He was so sweet!

I remember that you would write your scores yourself on a sheet of paper, but I feel like I have a memory of that paper being able to be projected on to the screen at the top.  I am not certain about this, but I feel like you could see the scores up there and it was not yet all electronic.  Anyone can correct me below or tell me your memories, I would appreciate knowing. I am not sure, but I feel like somehow you could see the scores and I feel like there was someone writing them on paper.  I think it was the case as I never liked for anyone to see my scores!

When I was older, I would go bowling with my sister, her husband and her two sons. The sons were so young and so much better than me.  My sister could never understand why I could not do something simple like bowling.  She would coach me on how to hold my wrist straight.  She would tell me different ways to try, complete with walking up to the lane and rolling it.  One time when we were bowling, it was like a light bulb went off for her.   I am left handed but do most sports with my right hand.  I am not too great at  any sport, however.  She told me to bowl with my left hand, and that she was sure that was my problem. I assured her that this was not the case but she persisted in having me try it.  I did and I swung back my arm with the ball in tow and brought the ball forward straight into the side of my knee.  I am not sure I have felt pain like that in my knee ever.  It turns out there was no damage, but it sure did hurt.  At least, everyone had a good laugh over that one! One time my ball got stuck back with the pins and the owner’s son had to get back there and remove the ball.  My sister whispered to him to stay back there and the next time I bowled, for him to be sure and knock them down.  Well, I bowled and missed them all on the first try, the second try I missed them all as well.  Out comes this hand, very obvious, and he knocks them all down.  What a great laugh we had! Again, no pictures captured that!

I then went bowling with my husband (who happens to still have his trophy from back in the day) and with my children.  I was no better, but I wonder why I thought I would just improve with age and no practice?  I was happy when we found they had bumper guards and I could bowl a little better.  I found a spot that I could hit that bumper and knock several down.  I am surprised I could hit that same spot, but I should not have been because after all, it was the gutter.  That is where most of my balls went! My children, however, did not “need” those and really did not want to bowl in those lanes so my “great” bowling days were over.  I think the lowest I have bowled a game was an 11 and the highest was a 110.  I am not sure how I got this high score, it must have been the bumpers or people taking a turn for me.  I am certain that others have these same types of stories to tell about bowlers they know.  I cannot be the only one.  These tidbits of my bowling experience, or rather lack of, is just a prelude to the story below.

The story about bowling that tops them all, is one about my Aunt.  She was a great bowler and was on bowling leagues for years.  They wore those cute league shirts that came in different colors.  Each league had their own color with the team name on the back and their name on the front of them. I remember that I was always impressed with the fact that she even owned her own ball!  We went to some of her games when I was a child and I can remember the atmosphere.  It was so lively with all of the different leagues bowling at once.  You could hear the balls hitting the floor and rolling down the lanes.  I loved that noise as well as the pins slapping to the ground.  The bowlers were all smiling, having such fun and excited to be there. They had a soda fountain and grill.  The hamburgers smelled so good and the sodas were great. There were a few pool tables and pinball machines. This was just a fun experience and good memory for me.

My cousin, Scottie, however has a great story to tell and he shared it with me. He and his little brother, Timmy, were taken to the bowling alley with her, their grandmother.  She was bowling and as she was approaching the lane, she sneezed.  Guess what happened??? She rolled the ball at the same as her sneeze and she spit her teeth, the top plate, out right down the lane!!!  I bet that tops all of the stories!  Probably not a  lot of people know anyone who has done that! Again, oh for a cell phone with a video camera!!! Scottie said she ran and grabbed her teeth quickly and about busted her behind doing it! He said she turned five shades of red and ordered him and Timmy to get out of there quickly!  I am told that she was so mad all of the way home and was cussing fixodent!

People that knew my aunt, their grandmother, knew that she was a hummer.  She hummed at different times, but actually quite a lot of times.  We learned that she hummed at different things, happiness, her favorite songs,  nerves, anger, excitement, etc. and in different manners for different emotions.  Scottie said that on the way home, there was an awful lot of humming going on.  Haha!  I know just what hum that was as I have heard it before! Story has it that when she got home, she was on the phone for about three hours doing damage control.  Even though he was eight or so at the time Scottie says he can see it clear as can be to this day and it is still just as funny!  He said she was getting mad at them for laughing about it so much.  When they got to her house he and Timmy went behind her garage and relived what they had just witnessed and laughed for hours!!!  I wish I would have seen this, but being told the story was just as good.  I can just picture it all! She was such a great, fun woman.  My mother and her had so many wonderful adventures.  There were three of the sisters.  There will never be any like them again.  They were such fun! I am sure there will be many, more stories of them and their antics.

Speaking of fixodent, if that were on film, what a great commercial it could have been for fixodent!  Don’t let this happen to you, get fixodent today!  I realize she used fixodent, but they could still use it, no one had to know that she did.  Hahaha!!!!

Let's Try Again

We leave the chapel, go outside and sit on a bench right outside the front door.  I wonder what the preacher and his assistant are thinking?  I just cannot help this laughing, I am sure it is probably stress and a release.  Who knows? My fiance tries to not make any more jokes so that I can stop laughing but at this point, anything is a joke to me. I am sure that you have had these moments when you have a fit of laughter and anything that is done or said just sets you off. We start discussing/reliving all of the events since we have arrived laughing and carrying on about it. We eventually get all laughed out.  He asks if we can still go get married.  In we go.

There are no questions asked by the preacher or his assistant.  In fact, they hardly even have an expression on their face.  Then again, they have not had any expressions since the beginning except to each other and that is in their adoration to each other.  It somehow feels like the times you would get chastised in school for giggling or causing an outburst.  We did not have to stand in the corner or skip recess or even write sentences, though.

We are back in the chapel in our proper position.  Do you know what?  I do not even remember any of the rest of the ceremony to even talk about.  I just know that we did actually get married and it was probably short and quick.  He did read Corinthians 13:4-8, I remember that. He did not ask my fiance to say "my dearest beloved" and I assure you, that is a good thing! I think that at this point, they were no longer interested in trying to do it properly, as in stand on the exact spot, etc.  I think they wanted us out of there as quickly as we did.  He was uncomfortable, you know.  He did not have on his favorite blue tie!  There was also the gardening to get back to!

Okay!  Now we get to go home!  Yay!!  I decided that I would like to wait to surprise my mother and sister and everyone in person.  So here we go!  Do things get any better?  Of course not!  Will I ever get out of this truck?  It is doubtful. We go through Utah.  My new husband says we will get a hotel there for our honeymoon. Guess what is between California and Utah???  Death Valley is there.  There is a nice short little stretch for 200 miles that there is NOWHERE to stop!  There are signs warning of this all over the place. We have our last bathroom stop.  It never worked when your parents would try to make you go before you leave, I am sure it will not now. Being aware of no place to stop only makes you think of it constantly and I try to tell myself to stop thinking about it.  We are singing and trying to have some fun.

It starts to get really, really hot in the cab.  My husband is messing with the controls and everything but there is no air conditioning.  I do not get it, there must be something about no air conditioning with us.   There is nothing worse than being hot and it does not do much for your mood. This is Death Valley, you know.  If it is 100 degrees outside, it is probably 120 in the cab of the truck.  There is no alternative but to open the windows. Now we get to go down the highway with the noise of a semi, turbo and all, and the wind blowing through the truck.  Boy, I sure would hate to be a truck driver for a living!  How do these guys do it with all of these problems? I guess I must be a bit spoiled after all. My husband's analogy was that it was like someone holding a hair dryer on high right in your face.  I say it was 10 hair dryers!  This was so miserable.  The only difference is no one was telling me to be quiet and go to sleep, but believe me, I was not giggling this time as when the hotel air conditioning was not working when I met his parents.

Well, I finally really had to go to the bathroom, so that was uncomfortable.  Miraculously a reservation/rest area appeared!  They were selling jewelry and trinkets, lots of turqouise.  They had bathrooms, boy was I excited, but not for long.  These bathrooms were metal teepees. The inside was a spiral walk through, like what the inside of a snail would look like. I started winding through and then came right back out.  It was dark and very hot.  There was no way I was walking through something I could not see in.  What if it were just a hole to lean over and I fell in.  I am such a sissy!  Back to the furnace of the truck and on our way.  Heat gets the best of me every time.  My husband suggests that I open the curtains and lay in the bunk. I tried that but it was no better and I said, "I want a divorce!"  Haha. (That happens to be the one and only time I have said that to him.  Probably because we have had air conditioning ever since.) Just a few short hours and the honeymoon is over.  He was ever so patient, but not me.

I believe we stayed in Provo, Utah.  This was not a good experience either.  We checked in, we ARE husband and wife, but no one there seemed to think we were.  They were all staring with looks of disgust on their faces.  I am sure they just knew I was someone this truck driver picked up for the night.  They went through all sorts of things just to register us, they had a million questions.  I do not know if this was because it was Utah or what, but they put us through the wringer.  I even finally volunteered that we were just married that morning.  They did not say a word or bat an eye, just looked at me like, yeah right, sure you did.  Well this put a big damper on my spirits. Their treatment was disrespectful.   My husband gave me all sorts of reasons they could be acting like this and tried to cheer me up.  Finally, I realized...this man IS my husband and who really cares what they think.  Just get through this and tomorrow I will be back home!

NOT!!!  He had another run added on.  We were going to stop in Denver.  I really want to tell my family that we are married. All of a sudden, it dawns on me that I only met his parents that one time.  What did I really know about any of them?   They live about 45 minutes from my home town.  I realized, what if my husband was like the town trouble maker or a hated family in their town?  How would I like that?  I start asking him these questions.  I asked what if he were the town drunk or in trouble with the law.  He said no that is my grandpa.  He said, but I am the town bigamist.  So funny, this guy!  Fine time to ask now, but he just laughed and told me all about his family and I had nothing to worry about. Funny, he never asked me any questions. 

Nothing much happened after this other than more delays. We had to spend an extra two nights waiting for the place to open. He was suppose to be able to drop at any time, but for some reason, this was changed. I was so anxious to get home and tell everyone. I finally had to at least tell my sister. We called and told her and she promised to keep the secret.  Since we got married alone, I needed for someone to be excited for us and my sister was.  We did run into a fellow that worked with him and he was happy for us!

 I think that by the time we finally did get home to tell everyone, it was about 10:30 p.m. or so.  I was disappointed knowing that all of my family was probably asleep by now. I had him lay on the air horn anyway!  I love those horns!  My disappointment did not last long, though!  My sister and her son had a cake made for us and came immediately over to mom's house with the cake and gifts. How sweet!!!! That made everything perfect to me! My mother did not believe us when we told her.  How we told her was to have him "carry me over the threshold". That backfired. She jumped up and asked what happened to me, did I get hurt?  Haha. When my sister came over, it helped her to perhaps maybe think we were telling the truth.  We showed her our "cute" little wedding certificate that we got from the chapel.  She said anyone could make up a fake one of those!  We told her that the official certificate from the courthouse would take a few days to arrive in the mail and she was somewhat satisfied.  My mom had a really nice reception for us about a week or so later and his sister had one for us in his hometown.  We are now ready to begin our life together.

After knowing each other for three weeks, we are still married almost 30 years later and still making each other laugh.  I am sure we will have a lot more adventures/embarrassing moments/memories and get into a lot more "trouble".

Possible Wedding Day

This is the possible wedding day.  We see the sign forThe Outpost Wedding Chapel and head that way.

The place is nothing like we expected. Then again, what did we really expect? The place was surrounded by a chain link fence. This was not your usual fence like in your back yard.   This was more like the chain link fences around a prison.  It looked to be designed to keep anything and everyone out.  Why would this be secured like it is? We were questioning as to whether or not we should enter.  However, we are at the point of no return. Remember, we are not in a car, we are in a semi, an International cab over, and maneuvering is not as easy.  Suddenly we hear a "ding ding" and alarms started going off and red lights started flashing.  Apparently there was a hose on the ground that loudly makes a noise when you drive over it, ding! ding! Remember the full serve gas stations? You  would pull in and drive over the hose and the sound alerted the attendant to come out.  Evidently this particular hose also triggered the louder alarms and lights and the gate opens.  I say alarms, but it was more like sirens or so it seemed to us. At this point we are wondering if the entire sign announcing this wedding stuff was a scam and we are going to be held hostage or who knows what may happen to us.

We are sort of gasping and actually a bit leery.  We are talking in hushed tones to each other wondering what is going on.  I am thinking what have I done?  Why did I ever start talking with this guy?  My fiance/truck driver/virtual stranger notices a guy messing in the dirt up near the building and points him out to me.  I quickly spotted him as well.  He appears to be weeding a garden but we do not really know.  He notices us and jumps up and runs in to the building.  I am not sure why all of the alarms and sirens did not signal our arrival to him. Who is the one that allowed the gates to open?  Do the alarms sound and the gate just opens?  What does this really accomplish?  I mean, what was the point if he did not hear them?  My fiance/investigator says maybe they are burying the prior couple that came in expecting to be married.  There's a thought.

My fiance/storyteller begins to narrate.  He says the guy is running in to the building yelling, "Mable, Mable, we got a customer.  Quick get ready!"  He says he is washing his hands and cleaning up now and frantically trying to get out of his gardening clothes and in to a suit.  He has me in stitches.  He says that when we get in there they will probably ask what we want as if there were another option like for instance a cheeseburger and fries! He went into an entire dialogue.  He is saying things like, "Mable, quick fix your hair we got one coming in. Come on Mable step it up." He will not let up and we are laughing so hard.  We get to the building and walk in and sure enough, the man is adjusting his tie. The first thing the man says to us is, "I am sorry, I was looking for my tie.  I wanted to wear my blue tie!"  I totally lose it, laughing way too hard to even speak.  The guy looks at us like we are crazy as he has no idea why we are laughing. We regain our composure and the guy says, "Can I help you?"  My fiance/psychic turns to me nodding his head yes with a look that I just know says "yes, see I told you?  How about that cheeseburger??" It's all over now, I cannot stop laughing. I do not know if it is from the prior anxiety, that it IS that funny, or it is nerves.  Whatever it is, I am hysterical. The man, undaunted, went on to tell us our options.

For additional fees we could have a number of things from flowers to music.  He had an entire list.  Some seemed nice, some seemed silly.  We could have a pretty little wedding certificate.  He said he could calligraphy it for us as he has been learning how and practicing.  The assistant, a woman, says he does just an awesome job at calligraphy, it is really nice. She is smiling up at him adoringly.  What a cute couple.  The frame for the certificate of course would be extra and we would have to wait to be sure the ink was dry!  Haha.  I think a video was offered for somewhere around $200.00 which we thought was quite high for back then. We could have 3 or 4 photos taken, but we would have to wait longer for someone to come take them. We said we just wanted to get married.  We were told we could say our own vows if we wanted and there were several different types of services.  We just quietly listened to their spiel. We had no idea this was how it would be.  We just figured we would go in, pay, sign some papers say our I do's and leave.  We told them that  we would just take a standard wedding and we would take the certificate.  The fee for these two things was a mere $120.00 if memory serves me. There is that speeding ticket hanging out there, though.

We paid and the preacher asked Mable to go get his robe.  He told her to be sure to get this certain one. It took her some time to get the robe. She finally returns, and they are both all smiles. We think Mable must be his wife or girlfriend, they are so enamored with each other.  He fastens up his robe and looks at Mable and talks about wanting his blue tie again. Mable agrees that yes, it does look good on him and turns to us and smiles and shakes her head yes.  She reminds me of the school secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off!  I felt like buying this man a blue tie since he loved it so.  His tie did not really matter, we just wanted to get this over with by now.  Picture this, (this is a movie reference, comment if you get it) we are 2,000 miles from home, we just had some questionable meat for breakfast, we got a speeding ticket, I am wearing my fiance's underwear, does it really matter what color of tie he is wearing? This place was beginning to feel weird.

He is dressed and ready.  He opens a closet, grabs his Bible and leads us into the chapel.   He proudly tells us that we get to come stand under this nice rounded arch of flowers.  There is about another 10 minutes spent on having us stand together and positioning us just perfectly. I think there was tape or something indicating just where we should stand.  Goodness there is such a fuss being made.  We get positioned and the preacher tells my fiance/comedian to take both of my hands in his and to look at me and say, "My dearest beloved."   I feel like the Golden Girls' Sophia here, but picture this....he is a larger, muscular  guy, 6'3", who rides a Harley, wears a leather Elmer Fudd hat, full leathers and has longer hair.  He is a truck driver.  At the moment he is wearing jeans, his work boots and a black t-shirt, tucked in with a big belt buckle.  It is not an extra huge buckle with like the picture of a truck or train or something, just a larger buckle, a plain opened square shape. His black t-shirt may have been a Harley t-shirt. Can you really picture that this big guy is going to be holding both hands, looking down at a 5"2" girl who is wearing his underpants and lovingly say, "My dearest beloved?"  I do not really think he could even say these words to anyone as it is not really something he would say, not really his style.

So.... he has my hands, he looks at the preacher, he looks at me, he grins a little and he then looks back at the preacher as if to ask if he were serious about wanting him to say this.  I am not able to totally describe his facial expressions but they are priceless!  It is like he is in disbelief that he has to say this and he is smiling like he surely has mistaken what he has been asked to do. He has this silly look and grin and is looking back and forth for probably a good 2 or 3 minutes that felt  more like about 10 minutes.   He sort of looks like a child who was up to mischief about to be caught and trying to figure his way out of it or to plan his escape. He looks down at me finally and rather than stating the words, it comes out like a question.  He  is so  hesitant, almost stuttering, and then says with a question in his voice, "My dearest beloved?"  I feel like he is waiting on an answer from me or encouragement that he said it correctly.   True to my prior behavior, I break into sudden hysterical laughter.  I double over and cannot stop.  This time the laughter is producing tears and I can barely breathe.  It was his face when he was told what to say and the looking around and then waiting on my response that did it. Actually it was his entire response that triggered it. I surely wish we had ordered that video! It would have been so much better than me trying to describe it! There is also the face of the preacher and his assistant.  They just stood there not understanding at all and saying nothing.  If I saw someone laughing like that I would have at least smiled and maybe even chuckled.  I thought laughter was suppose to be contagious,  It was more than I could handle and watching the preacher and his assistant/possible wife/possible girlfriend made it all the more hysterical.  I wish I could totally explain this so that you could picture it.  My fiance/guide/rescuer takes action and grabs my hand and leads me out of the building.... 

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New Years Eve

Mom and Dad had New Year's Eve parties.  They were not really parties, they involved the family and were a bit different.  When we were children we would try to stay up late so we could go outside and make noise at midnight. This was a tradition that Mom and Dad had.  We did not always make it until then since we were so young.  This was a night to play games and watch television.  We had all sorts of snacks during the evening, complete with some left over Christmas goodies! When we did make it up until midnight, it seemed that great things happened!  It was such fun to go outside and make noise.  Mom gave us pots and pans and wooden spoons and we would get to bang on them as hard as we could. Clang! Clang! Clang!  I always liked the angel food cake pan.  You could put your hand in the middle of the pan and bang away! The older brothers would fire shotguns into the air.  We could hear the other neighbors making noise as well and some had firecrackers.  It seemed such fun to be able to go outside late at night and make noise! I have no idea why they thought of going outside and making noise, but hey, I happily participated. It was fun and it was really neat!  The sounds of talking in the distance, sounds of merriment and noise-making echoing through the woods and the area was something to hear! Some noises were muffled as they were more in the distance and we would try to guess what neighbors were doing what.  This was such excitement for little kids and the grown ups seemed to enjoy it too!!   After the noisemaking, Mom honored the tradition that a man had to be the first person through the door of the house the first day of the year, so we had to wait for Dad or one of the brothers to enter the house first.  If a woman/girl entered first, she would have you walk out backwards so a man could then enter.  Walking out backwards must have "un-done" your entrance. I think some of the times, we would open the door so we could and the old year out and let the new year in.

After the noise making, mom and the older children would come in and call relatives and friends.  All of the phone prefixes started with the same number then so if the year was 1965, they would disguise their voice and call people and say is this 1-9-6-5?  They would for some reason find it funny if the person would say no and they would laugh and say yes it is!  They would shout "Happy New Year!"  They would only talk for a brief moment as they had others to call and do the same thing to and they did not want them to beat them to it!

The bad part of this was the next day. There was some sort of food mom had to serve.  I am shocked that I do no remember this, as I was always upset that she made it, mainly because I did not care for it.  It was either cabbage, or beans and corn bread.  It was something that she said was to be the traditional first meal of the new year.  I do not know which it was.  Her mother was German, so I am thinking it was cabbage. Well, I have talked with a reliable source, my cousin, Scottie, ...and he states that it was corned beef brisket, and cabbage, boiled with potatoes and carrots.  He still eats it every New Year's Eve!  Scottie, I never really cared for it, but I am thankful you were there to remember for me.

When our own children, were younger, we would have snacks and sparkling grape juice to toast with at midnight.  We would play some games and perhaps watch a movie.  We enjoyed watching the yearly countdowns, top music, top news, etc. As the children aged, we would host game nights with plenty of food. We would allow the friends to all stay over (in fact we preferred it) so no one would be out driving with the ones who drive and drink. We would go outside at midnight and make noise, but we never heard anyone else and it felt sort of silly to be doing that.  The kids did not really see the point, so we stopped that. We would serve breakfast for the ones who stayed over. Some times, we would have the same type of thing at church and stay there until midnight or later. The church sort of lost interest in this or the people did, so we had it at our home mostly.  We always liked to provide alternatives for the children. We had such great times on New Year's Eve. 

No game night tonight!  All of the children and their friends are grown and really are not too interested in coming here.  I wonder why?  I even have pots and pans I would let them bang on!

Happy New Year, everyone!  Enjoy and please, please be safe!

Please comment below and share your memories! 

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California Or Bust!

So, since it was only suppose to be a day to get to Florida and back, this should be a two day trip.  I am packed and ready to go!  California should be beautiful.  I have to admit I am sort of excited.  I have only been east and south.

This first day has seemed so long. I am bored out of my mind, the scenery is not as pretty as I was thinking it would be. Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico seemed to take forever to get through. In Texas, we did come upon a place where they had buried a bunch of cadillacs in the ground leaving only half sticking out of the ground.  This was on Route 66 west of Amarillo.  Here is an excerpt from what I found online:

“Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3’s fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.”  You may want to Google the article.  Just search for Cadillac Ranch. 

It seemed I slept a lot through this trip since I was so bored. I do not know how those drivers stay awake for hours on end day after day.   It was about 10:00 p.m. when my “driver” woke me up and told me to sit up I would want to see this.  We were climbing a mountain and he wanted me to be sure to see when we got to the top. OH MY GOODNESS!!  What a beautiful, breathtaking sight!  It was Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was the lights of the town, the stars in the sky, the way the night just felt, the sounds from the truck seemed hushed and it was like time stood still.   I can barely describe it.  It was like a bowl of jello, dark, dark jello with suspended bright lights in it.  It felt like we were hovering above it and were suspended in this bowl of jello.  It no longer felt like we were driving or moving. It was too beautiful to describe and exciting as well as it felt as though we were going to fall all of the way to the bottom. Seeing this was worth the trip! The Grand Canyon was driven through at night, so we missed that.  That actually made me sort of angry, well not angry, maybe sad.   My driver/tour guide sad we would have actually had to drive over to it anyway, but what a missed opportunity! There is beauty to be seen in everything, I realize and appreciate that but  I just had expectations.

Then came California which was not what  I imagined at all.   It is sort of sad to have waited your entire life to see something and then it is a let down. We dropped the trailer that we had in Long Beach, California at a seaport and were headed back out of there for Salt Lake City, Utah.  My driver/tour guide said, “Hey!  There is a sign that says Marriages, No Blood Test Required!  Want to get married?”  I looked at him confused and he explained that we could get married without a blood test, did I want to.  I looked at him a few minutes, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure.” Hey, I have known him now for three weeks, so what the heck!   Now I am sort of excited, sort of worried.  Okay, a lot worried.  Should I marry a guy I have known for only three weeks?  I saw his parents one time and we know how that went.  His boys did like me.  I never met his daughter.  I guess considering the facts, naturally yes is the answer!  I told him I would buy him a steak for a nice pre-wedding breakfast.  We are both happy now but that does not last long. The restaurant we stopped at was not the best choice.  I realize that the breakfast steaks are not always top quality, but I am not so sure that it was even a steak that we had.  Was it even a type of meat? We started teasing about what it might have been and then there was no way we could even take another bite.  Just the smell of it should have stopped us. It was the most terrible place ever!  I can honestly say that I have not had anything that bad to eat and it still holds the title for the worst thing we ever ate, rather, tried to eat. We left the restaurant, still feeling hungry, but with a complete loss of appetite.  We head on over to this place ….

As we are nearing our destination, we stop to  freshen up for the wedding.  Have I mentioned that I do not like truck stop showers either?  There is something about  going in right after a stranger that bothers me. They are pre-heated and pre-steamed up from the prior person which is unpleasant. It just feels sort of yucky. I was afraid the doors would not remain locked.  I made my now fiance. stay outside of the door and stand guard.  I even had to have a pair of flip flops so I would not stand on the floor after others.  As I thought this was a short trip,  I did not have many clothes with me.  Okay, I will admit it, I had nothing to wear!  I packed enough for two days so this means that I left in what I had on and brought one change of clothing with me.  I do not know what I was thinking.  I guess I thought this guy was the best truck driver ever and that  he could just endlessly drive and get there and come straight back.  I have no concept of time or miles.  He was having such fun laughing over this situation, wondering who would ever think it was that short of a trip!  He said that even if he drove the entire time we would have not made it back in two days.  We had stopped in New Mexico when we were there  and he bought me a rather pretty top so I could just wear that.  I had a pair of clean jeans and I had bought a package of underwear.  Well, I must have picked up the wrong package because three of me could have fit in them.  Now what?  I put the underwear on and that made my jeans appear to have a baggy diaper or a big wadded up piece of material in them.   I was in no way going to wear these! He had a new package of underwear for himself and his was closer to my size than mine. Nice, I am going to be married wearing  men’s underwear.  Is this what they mean by wearing the pants in the family??  If so, I was going to be starting the marriage out right! They were fruit of the loom briefs.   Go me! I am such a class act. I have come to realize two things about this truck — things do not seem to go right…. EVER!  and that once you get in that truck, you seem to never get out!!!

All cleaned up and ready to go! We were so excited, we were singing, laughing, joking and trucking right along.   Suddenly  red lights are flashing behind us.  I am sure they are not an escort to the wedding, but hey, it could happen.  We pull over and the officer was not very kind from the beginning.   We had no trailer on and the truck had  a jiff-lock.  This means that you could raise the back axle and you then have the same number of axles as a car.  The speed limit for cars now applies to you. The officer informed us that we were speeding.  My fiance told the officer we were not, we had the jiff lock up and he started to explain it, but this officer did not really care about any of this.  He  basically handed over the the ticket and said tell it to the judge.  As we start back up, the CB radio goes wild.  They are all saying things to him like we tried to get you and let you know, you would not respond to us at all, what were you thinking.  For some reason, this was making us laugh.  I guess there was not much else to do but laugh. He explained to the other truckers that he was just excited as he was going to be getting married and that we had the CB radio off,  the music radio on and we were singing and goofing around.  They were so nice!   Well wishes and congratulations started flowing along with condolences on our ticket.  It was fun talking with all of them.  It actually is rather fun to ride along with a truck driver.  The things you experience are endless. These people have a camaraderie.  Sure there are some bad as there are in any given group, but most are so good.  They sacrifice so much to earn a living and are stereotyped incorrectly.  They are people like everyone else and are under appreciated.  What a lonely, yet dangerous job this can be. There are so many wrecks out there and they are at such a risk, yet they look after everyone.

Realization — This is going to be an expensive wedding after all and maybe not so quick and easy.  Maybe it won’t even happen.  Who knows what else can go wrong?  Our spirits are a little dampened now but we head on over to this place … The Out Post Wedding Chapel, Victorville, California.  Interstate 15 and Hwy 395. …….


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