The Party Line

In the 1930s and 1940s, the term soap opera became part of American culture.  This arose mainly from the fact that most women stayed at home and listened to the radio as they did their daily chores.   Doing laundry was not a quick, load the washer, change wet clothes to the dryer matter.  It was an all day job.  Women did not have Pledge, 409, Dawn, Tide, Downey,  and my personal favorite, Comet cleanser,was just hitting the market.  Things were harder, more time consuming.  It prompted soap companies and companies that manufactured "housewifely" items to sponsor the daytime radio  serials.  Hence "Soap Opera".

My mother said she was listening to, "Ma Perkins" when she knew it was time to go to the hospital with me.  She then blamed me for years that I caused her to miss an important episode of "Stella Dallas" .  So I grew up with radio programs, "Our Gal Sunday", the story of a poor girl from a mining community in England who marries a wealthy Count, Lord Sunday.  Your memory dims over some things but not radio soap operas. ESPECIALLY  when that was the only commercial entertainment until you went to town on Saturday afternoon and went to the movie. 


 "Helen Trent", the story of a reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper....  Admittedly this was difficult for a young girl to relate to.  The one paper in Greer County was the Mangum Star which came out on Thursdays.  Hard to imagine something interesting enough about a reporter to make a whole soap opera.  The headline news in the Mangum Star was that Miss Teddie Larson's niece and nephew visited last weekend from Oklahoma City and enjoyed dinner in the park after Church Services at the Nazarene Assembly. 

Kids had our sound version of Nicklelodean.  These programs came on Saturday mornings and you did not miss them.  Oh the excitement of "The Shadow".  Famous line if you play Trivia Pursuit, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, the _____knows" That was the lead in line from the Shadow.  Then of course, Jack Armstrong, All American Boy, sponsored by Wheaties , the breakfast of champions. The Lone Ranger, Spiderman, Brenda Starr (another reporter by the way, something related only to "up" north) As you grew you got to listen to more mature programs on Saturday morning.  "Grand Central Station".  Oh I remember it well.  There was a really big train station in New York City and it was full all the time and just plain ordinary citizens had stories that began and ended there.  Tried to equate that with the MKT railroad station in Mangum, Oklahoma, which was a one room wooden building  built on a concrete platform right next to the railroad tracks.  It was probably 20 x 30 feet in size and held some benches, two water fountains, but no bathrooms and a small area for the station master.  Two trains stopped there every single day.  Sometime someone got off or on.  Probably not enough to shape a soap opera around so no wonder they had to revert to Grand Central Station.

Sunday night was the biggest night of the week.  We lived out in the country, some 30 miles from Mangum.  We did not journey into town for Sunday night Church service. So at 6:00 we all gathered around the radio and listened to "One Man's Family".   It was sort of the Waltons, same time period, but with more income and living in the San Francisco area.


I seem to remember that we  did not leave the radio on all the time.  Only in the afternoons to listen to the news, and maybe Amos and Andy.  Then it was turned off.  No one stayed up for a 10:00 news program if there was such a thing.  I think we turned off anything electric when ever it was not being used.  Maybe it was thought that it would run out.  However, I suspect that my grandparents and parents generation just did not waste anything.  


That was our equivalent of television.


Then we had a phone and your line was shared by other families.  The "Party Line".  Everyone had one, rich or poor, you shared the phone line.  If you were going to make a call you quietly picked up the phone and listened to see if anyone else was talking.   I think there was some listening in for a while just to see what was going on.  The other parties knew someone had picked up and they would hurry, knowing someone else needed to use the phone.  I remember my grandmothers talking to two or three other people. because if you got on it was rude not to say  something which oft times led to conversation.  You took your entertainment where you found it.  


This would come to a surprise to the youth of today, but pre teens and teenagers in the country did not talk on the phone.  It would never have have crossed our minds to phone a friend.  Our conversations were held at school or at Church or in town on Saturday afternoon.  


When we first got phones there was no dial.  You picked up the phone and the operator came on and she (I don't know that there was such a think as a male operator back then) would get the number for you.  If you didn't know the number she did.  The operator in a small town was known by all and she knew everyone and everything.  If you wanted to know how someone who was sick and maybe in the hospital was doing you just rang the operator and she would know.  But  this was Mangum, county seat of Greer County.  Things were different in the big cities.    


The Party Line was our equivalent of Face Book.


 

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WHATS THE BIG DEAL?

Last year at this time, i posted this and this year i do so again.  Happy Birthday Jimbo

You know as you get older, you realize things you considered BIG are really LITTLE in the scheme of things.  For instance: you will recall that Mate and I ran off and got married.  Boy was that a BIG thing!  After 57 years the actual planning and doing it was not at all that big.  It was one of many defining moments in our lives and certainly the living together is BIGGER than the actual running away.   The finding a way to buy a home across the street from the Colleys  was really not such a BIG thing.  The BIG thing was living and forming lasting memories and friendships together  for over 30 years.    In 1967, our family consisted of a Mom, Dad and 14 year old daughter.  Our lives were just peachy.  Our wants were not much.   Daughter was doing okay in school, we were  content.  Had just what we wanted.  Fusses every once in a while but they passed.  All in all....... GOOD life.  God blessed us.

1968 proved that indeed God has a sense of humor. 

 If you live in Wichita Falls, Texas, you know that usually on the last Saturday in January each year, the Kiwanis Club has a pancake breakfast and it is almost mandatory to attend sometime during the day.  We always did.  After all you got to visit with people you didn't see much during the year, and every politician who was running for office or trying to stay in office would be there and back then they gave away pencils or  rulers.  It was, you might say,  festive.  Plus all the bacon and pancakes you wanted.

In 1968 my doctor's office was open on Saturday mornings.    I had  made an appointment.  Told no one.  In my mind I had decided I was going to have a baby.  Don't have the slightest idea why (maybe that sense of humor thing again).  Dr. Richard Bates, my doctor for everything.  I loved Richard Bates.  No personality,  seldom ever joked , just down to business.  Office on Brook Street.  Told him what I thought, and he laughed.  That was a BIG thing.  I had made Richard Bates laugh.  Had to do what was called a rabbit  test back then. Had nothing to do with a rabbit but thats what it was called.  He said he would let me know Monday.  Told him I would be a maniac before Monday.  Nurse, friend of mine,  said she would run the test and he would call me in a couple of hours.  Feeling better I went home.

Mate and daughter ready to go eat pancakes.  I stalled and I stalled.  Phone rang.  I answered.  Simple statement from Richard Bates.  "You're pregnant."  His next words, "Are you Okay?"  I think I must have weakly said "Yes".    How do you  tell  two unsuspecting persons that three people's lives as they know them are about to change and change dramatically, when they have no clue what is going on?  When in doubt, barrel in. "Lets go eat pancakes and by the way, we are going to have a baby,"  I said as I walked toward the door.  That my friends was a 'BIG THING'.

Needless to say we did not leave right away, we had a family discussion.  Daughter wanted immediately to run tell the neighbors.  Mate said, do not leave the house.  I think it took a while for it to sink in.

Well 1968 had come in like a lion.  We adjusted.  Daughter was ecstatic, Mate happy, I stayed in shock.  I was the practical one.  I thought about things like, PTA again, bottles to sterilize, diapers to wash.  Now along about three-forths of the way through I began to do some investigation and found that things had come a long way.  Bottles of formula could be bought and all you had to do was to put a nipple on the top of the bottle. Pampers were introduced some 7 years earlier but had not caught on.  They had a long way to go and still used those huge safety pins with the little ducks on them.  However, at this point in time, unlike when Daughter was born, we had a washer.  No dryer yet, but a washer that you did not have to stand over and operate.  It did it on its own.  Still almost every back yard had a clothes line. One good thing about the pregnancy is that I never felt better in my entire life, before or since.  Didn't gain but 14 pounds, was able to get really cute maternity clothes and best of all people made over me all the time.  They thought it was wonderful. I was not certain of that.  Selfishly I kept thinking about how my life was going to change.    I worked until 2:00 on the afternoon of September 9, 1968, and went home got my "stuff" together and Mate, Daughter and I journeyed to the hospital where I was scheduled to deliver a baby the next morning at 9:30.  Well, it was almost fun.  I had a large room, flowers from bosses, whatever I wanted to eat that evening.  It wasn't til Mate and Daughter left that I assessed my position.  There was no way to get out of it, no way to say, "I changed my mind", nothing to do but plow ahead and wonder if it would be a boy or girl.    So the next morning,  I bade my family a teary see you later and was wheeled into the operating room.  At 9:36 on September 10, 1968 ,  Dr. Bates  announced, "You have a fine looking boy here." 

That folks is a 
          BIG, BIG, DEAL Happy Birthday Son.  Thanks for coming into our lives

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Help We're Being Held Captive

By a small white German Schnauzer. Mornings now belong to Daisy.  Routine has set in.  I no longer just get to have my coffee and read what news I care to read on the computer. Between clicks to see how things are going on the coast and, though I swore to not get involved, in seeing how the Texas Rangers did, I am at the mercy of a 15 pound creature.  She brings me one of her toys and lays at my feet, biting it where the squeeker is  so that it makes the most irritating noise on earth.   The most urgent thing on her mind is having me get the toy and proceed to throw it down the hallway so that she can get it and bring it back.  She stops long enough to go to her box and maybe change toys.  Her biggest decision of the day is which one to chose and who can know why she choses one over the other.


 Sometimes she has the attention span of a mite (not that I know how long that was measured or by whom, but it sounds very small); other times she is tenacious and will stand for what must seem like hours to her, but actually it is only minutes, looking up into the tree in our neighbors yard.  She once went outside as a squirrel ran along the top of our fence and jumped into that huge oak.  She is convinced it is still there.  Each time she goes out she takes her stand and looks upward into that tree.  I feel safe knowing she is protecting us.


Something in her mind snaps and she wants me to make yet another trip with her,  down the hallway, to stand outside the bedroom where Mate lies sleeping.  She looks mournfully under the door while making a wailing sound.  She wants her best friend to get up.  She wants to play "Where's Daisy" while we make the bed.  She now waits for us to hold up the sheet so that she can "hide" under it.  She lays spread eagle on her stomach and watches Mate perform his morning ritual of brushing teeth, combing what hairs are left and washing his face.  All the while talking to him about what their plans for the day should be. She will not leave his side for long at a time for the rest of the day,only going outside, but wishing him to go with her.  He usually goes.


Good grief.  It this were a television show now the sound of a needle scratching across a record would be heard and the narrator would say, "What am I thinking!!!!.  We have to get a life".


You know before we rescued Daisy, I thought we had a life.  For a couple in their 70s we are pretty active.  Mate can't do what he used to do because of health reasons, but he volunteers for several things.   I go to work every day and do pretty much what I always did at work, except I don't climb up on the ladder to retrieve a file like I did for years  (somehow you become aware that when older persons fall there is usually a knee or hip replacement in the  future).  We go out to eat all the time with good friends, we go to plays and concerts. I am pretty active on Facebook and Mate texts with son and grandson. Unlike what you may have thought from watching him drive, HE DOES NOT TEXT while driving.  (I just had to stick that in, I think the Devil made me do it)  He is very good on the Mac and can do anything we need to do using technology we didn't know would exist 10 years ago. We spend a lot of time at the Church building,  and we relish an evening at home from time to time because frankly we don't stay at home a lot in the evening.


Wait Just A Minute (as Jimmy Durante used to say)we do have a life, Daisy has just enhanced it.  Oh thank goodness.   

From An Email to 15 People

  Today, our hearts are heavy and Jim and I want to share a family's story with you.

On August 14, 2009, a good friend, Bruce Stanford sent me a forwarded email.  Bruce was always sending me forwards.  One was an email from a mother in Westerville, Ohio, that for some reason touched my heart.  She has a son 8 years old at the time and he had just been diagnosed with osteoscarcoma.     Osteo as families fighting always call it, is one of the most deadly of cancers occurring most often in teens.  Seldom survivable if it has spread to the lungs, but can be conquered if all things are just right. It attacks the bones usually in the limbs.

 Cindy Bish was a desperate mother; she did what all mothers who are cornered do, she fought  with the only weapon she had.  A belief in the Lord God Almighty.  She sent out a simple email to 15 friends asking for prayers and asking that they pass it on. She pulled her congregation together, she organized prayer groups and she begged for those of us who had gotten the email to pray fervently,   A mother cannot diagnoses, cannot treat, cannot perform surgery. She can be there and she can beg.    I saw this  same determination once before up  close and, as they say,  in living color, when our daughter in law was determined that cancer would not take her sweet daughter, Annde.  She held that baby as the doctors did spinal taps; she held her as they did bone marrow tests;  she, along with the help of so many your prayers, and with God's will,  won that battle.

With those 15 persons, the email was sent  to others and on and on and on.  It went around the world.  Posted on the Caring Bridge site are 399,000 plus messages for the Bish family from every state and from Australia to Canada and from Japan to England.

 I was sceptical at first  but checked it out with the Church mentioned, Westerville Christian Church (formerly Westerville Church of Christ)   It was obvious that this was genuine.  She had called on her fellow Christians for help.  She had no hesitation in doing that.  She was at war.  She created a web site in Caring Bridge which I will post on the bottom of this and invite you to go in and send a message with a prayer in your heart for this fine family.  It was through this congregation that I first heard about doing a prayer in the yard and if you go to that web site and look at the pictures you can see the members surrounding the Bish home.

 The day finally came when they had a big decision to make.  Do they authorize an amputation of Sam's leg or not.  They were sent the name of a doctor at MD Anderson in Houston and arrangements were made to fly there with Sam.


  In case you wonder if people are still caring in this world, let me tell you about a family in Houston.  Never met the Bish family but like Jim and I had followed along on Caring Bridge  because someone had sent them the Mother's email.  The Houston family contacted the doctor in Ohio, made the flight arrangements for Mike, Cindy and Sam, paid for the tickets, met them at the plane, kept them at their home, took them to eat real Tex Mex food and drove them everywhere they needed to be staying with them through the testing at MD Anderson.  This did not cost the Bish family a penny.  They even sent Texas presents home for the two little girls, Caitlin and Aubrey. Pictures of this fine family are also on the site. 


Decision was made for amputation.  Sports teams visited Sam in the hospital.  His story has been on TV in Ohio many times. ....... spots were discovered in the lungs.


Never giving up, they got ready for lung surgery not long after the amputation.  Many nodules were discovered, many removed.  The outlook was good.  There would be one more round of chemo, it looked as if they were winning the battle.  


The Bish family prepared for a trip to, you know.......... DisneyWorld in Orlando.  Make a Wish foundation had stepped in.  They went just a week or so ago and were scheduled for five more days in the hospital beginning today for the last round of chemo.  They were dreading it but again it was part of the battle plan.  I cut and paste a paragraph from the posting on Caring Bridge this afternoon.


"It is with a very heavy heart that I write this journal entry. Sam is at home tonight. He was admitted this morning and was taken down for a CT scan first thing.  Sam's doctors pulled me over to the side (away from Sam) and told me that the CT scan showed a relapse of cancer in Sam's lungs. Several nodules have shown up in both of Sam's lungs ( I do not have an exact number...just several) and some of the nodules appear to be bigger. This is very bad news for Sam and our family. The doctors are concerned that he relapsed so quickly after his last lung surgery and while he was still on chemotherapy treatments. Sam's doctors are consulting with the doctors in Texas (Dr. Anderson) and we will meet with our doctors on Friday to discuss a new plan of action. At this point it looks like Sam will be facing 2 additional lung surgeries and a change in his treatment.  Our family is heartbroken and is just trying to hold it together. Please pray!!!  We went into the hospital expecting this to be Sam's last inpatient chemo....instead we are faced with more hurdles to overcome and more surgeries on the horizon.   Our little fighter is still fighting but he has a major battle to face right now. We are tired and heartbroken and really need strength that only God can give us."


Please make a trip to Sam's Caring Bridge page and post a comment as you say a little prayer to the Father for Sam and Cindy, Mike, Caitlin and Aubrey.  As Christians, its what we do, 
 http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sambish/journal?jid=5826121

Til Death Us Do Part

 July 3, 1953 at approximately 5 in the afternoon, we became Mate and Mate. (The only wedding picture.  We were on the run)    What a long time ago; What a lot has happened; What were we thinking??

To take those points one at a time: WHAT A LONG TIME AGO.  Yes it was.
WHAT A LOT HAS HAPPENED: Yes it has.  WHAT WERE WE THINKING: Who could possibly know.  I am not sure either one of us knew how to think at that stage of our lives. If we had been where we were say 30 or 40 years later or even today, and we sat down and thought it through, I promise we would not have run away and said "I do".  We would have said something like "Are you kidnin me" (kidnin being our granddaughter's way of saying kidding). 

Sometime God just takes over and blesses you even if you haven't asked for it and even if you don't deserve it and even if you don't realize He has done it.

We had rough times in the early  years.  We didn't particularly like each other from time to time.  We didn't have money to go out and "enjoy" ourselves or sometimes not enough to know if we would make it through the week.  We were selfish, never having been taught  to put another person's wants and needs above our own.  We were not patient; we were not  kind; we were not always forgiving; we were not mature; and we did not understand God's will  on how to deal with one another.  If we analyze closely we had very little in common.  So there is no way we would still be married today.  OOOPS,   We are!  We celebrate 57 years together as husband and wife. Tonight after having eaten out with friends, which we do every Friday night, we will get each other a card, (quit buying gifts years ago);  we will play with the Daisy the new dog;  we will kiss each other good night; and say "I love you".  Other than the card and the Daisy Dog,  we have done that for probably 30 years..  The kissing and saying "I love you" we have done almost every night for 57 years. 
                                                                                                              (this looks a lot like our family........well at least the dog is named Daisy.  Jim never wore a bow tie and my hair was never that blond and neither was  Kays, and Jimbo, well maybe he did sort of look like Alexander)

We have been asked the secret for staying married  so many years.  Its simple but not easy.   For the first 10 years we didn't know we had a choice;  For the next 30 years we were busy with  family (daughter Kay, son Jimbo,  grand kids), with  jobs and with living in general;  For the next 10 years we realized that it is just too much trouble to not stay married; and, for the last 7 years we are just too tired.   So there you have it in a nut shell.  How to stay married for 57 years.

If you had asked us if we would do it all over again.............. during the first 10 years we would have said  "let us get back to you on that".  The next 30 years we would have said "Yes".   The next ten years we would have told you "We did good ".   The last 7 years we would have said "do what over?"

I guess that every period of time had its rewards; however,  we have to think long and hard to remember what that could have been the first 10 years.  A series of horrid apartments, fussing when we didn't get our way, being too short sighted to see more than 15 minutes ahead, but still in that period of new love almost every problem could be solved by an argument  and making up. 

The next 30 years:     In 1960 we bought a house. The nicest thing we had ever lived in.   Plain and simple, no air conditioning, no central heat, horrible heater in the hall that burned you up when you stood in the hall and froze you in any other part of the house,  one bathroom, 963 square feet. $8,750.00.    Payments $68.00 a month, including taxes and insurance, all we had to do was catch 2 up.  We didn't have that kind of money.  But my sweet grandmother did. For the first time in our lives we were in debt.  Our mortgage was for 20 years, our interest rate was 4  %.  Had we not decided to move to Lake Palestine in East Texas we would still live there, looking out our front door into the back yard of Beverly and Milton Colley.

Mate was a builder. We always planned to build a  showcase home. Every time new plots of land would open up we would look at house plans.  We would buy an extra lot.  We would sit and think about our neighbors, the fact that our kids knew everyone in the Addition.  We felt safe and loved and happy where we were.  Some things are just more important than big houses.  Then we would add a room, add a swimming pool, or add a new patio. Never did put in another bathroom.   When we sold the house it had doubled in size, we had a pool, very little yard to care for and  we still had the same neighbors.

(this picture  in the Colley garage at Halloween probably 40 years ago)

Milton Colley always had a project.  Either digging a storm cellar, or closing in the garage, or building a camper. Each evening we would have dinner, get  lawn chairs, a glass of tea and journey across the street, sit in the shade and watch Milton work.  Some evenings if there were no project going we played fierce badminton.   All the kids played either Boys Club Basketball or football,  the men coached and we all went to all the games.  Even if your kid wasn't playing.   It was  a wonderful time.
We lived in that house for over 30 years and made our sweetest memories there.


  1990 we left for Lake Palestine,  Then in 2000 we came back home to Wichita Falls.  I wish we could have gone back to Dunbar and how it was.  Great American author, Thomas Wolfe, last novel "You Can't Go Home Again"  is true. 

So here we live and fortunately we have wonderful neighbors, but it can, of course, never be the same again. 

The next 10 years we discovered the comfort of knowing each other well.  Overlooking things like he can't find anything if it is covered up, that I never close a cabinet  or drawer completely; he would rather stay home than eat out but does because it makes me happy.  He pays the check even if I ordered iced tea.  I wait til the last minute to do something, he does it as soon as it can be done.  I finish his sentence which irritates him, but not so much any more.  Its comfort.

   (the Christmas picture below is our entire family 2009 in California, missing first grandson, Cole, stuck up north by weather)


Then of course the last 7 years have been the "ignore any problem that comes our way" years.  We tend to forget any bad thing that happens.  If you irritate either one of us today, we will have forgotten it by evening.  We still go out to eat way more often than we eat at home, but I don't always order iced tea. We have friends we enjoy and who we can count on and who we love like family.  We still disagree on most non important things.  The best thing that has happened to us is that we have learned to pray aloud together.  It was not always so.
(picture is probably 9 or 10 year old Church Directory.  Oh so much nicer than the latest one, so we will ignore the recent one and pretend we still look this good.  Its the least we can do after 57 years and it makes us feel better)

We still kiss each other good  night and say I love you and  maybe sometime we mean it more than we ever did.  So Happy Anniversary to my Mate and may God Bless us for the time we have left together.

I did forget the most important thing.  WE DO KNOW THE SECRET to a successful 57 years of marriage.  It took a while but along about the 30th year we finally learned to  let God take control.

Daisy Mae, Elvis, Miscellany

It  has been awhile since I emptied my mind onto this page and called it a "blog" but it seems my mind has been blank.  I have had numerous requests to do another "writing" (well maybe the niece in Ohio, but she will probably say it many times) and even though nothing big has happened since we got Daisy Mae (previously known as Sparkle) I will pour out what little there is.  Well one thing has changed, we have now memorized our Vet,  Bryan Wade's home phone number in case we would need him day or night.  (and, we are not too proud to use it.)

Daisy Mae has changed our lives.  Instead of watching Masterpiece Theater and The History of Civilization so that we can converse with our friends about matters of culture and sophistication, Mate and I sit at opposite ends of the living room floor and toss a little stuffed animal back and forth after giving it a squeek, all the while saying, "Go get it Daisy"(sounding suspiciously like we were talking to a two year old child) Our minds may be suffering but our biceps are definitely showing improvement.  When I come home in the afternoon from a hard day at the office, I keep reminding myself over and over  "Hug Mate First, Hug Mate First".  Then before dinner we discuss what Daisy did during the day.  Of course this is in addition to whatever Mate has emailed me that was so special it could not wait til I came home from work.  Yes indeed our life is looking up.

Despite being a bit consumed by Daisy, this week we have continued our interesting, full, sometime productive life.  In fact this week a bit of Miscellany happened that completely put Mate in a funk.  If you have followed along with me you know that Mate has an aversion to ordering a drink with his many meals eaten out during the course of a week.  He is against it and oft times will chastize me for spending money on a glass of tea which is so cheap to make.  (oh how many times have I heard that),  Friday evening we ventured out to the far north side of town to a catfish place called Fred's.  We had been out there years and years ago, I think only 1 time but then it was Kickapoo Catfish.

I noticed right away that Mate ordered iced tea! I said nothing but admit  I was shocked in addition to being startled (all the while vowing to take his blood pressure when we returned home) The tea was what I, as a certified iced tea specialist,  would call average.  The cat fish on the other hand is wonderful.  Maybe the best catfish I have ever eaten.  However I am not certified in this particular food.

Well moving right along to the arrival of the bill.  Bless his heart. It was the first time in  long ago years that I have seen Mate's face fall.  I mean actually fall.  That look that tells every one in a close vicinity that something earth shattering has happened, something so unexpected as to be almost frightening, but more along the lines of shocking.  I was relieved that our friend, Gene Stevens was nearby in case he fell.  They had charged him for the iced tea! The menu said that the tea was part of the meal and so of course Mate ordered tea. Never one to let a free item go.  Seems that was on the lunch not on dinner.  A good meal totally ruined.  It has been almost 48 hours and he is still lamenting.   So we may well go back to Fred's, but you can rest assured that Mate will order water with lemon.

Saturday afternoon, we went to see Elvis.  Nice looking young fellow, who did look a lot like him.  Sold out house at the Wichita Theater, main floor and balcony.  We personally went for the Stamps Quartet, a group from Gospel Music with whom we are very familiar.  Elvis Impersonator,  Kraig Parker, was on the second half of the show.  It was not hard to judge which part of the program was more popular.  Lets just say Elvis trumped Gospel Music.  I would not have breathed a word of it there for fear of an uprising, but Mate and I have never been the greatest of Elvis fans.  We do recognize that he was  a phenomenal  entertainer.  We probably will never see his like again.

Well my mind is about emptied.  So I will close this by telling you that I am just about through with my first Senior citizen blog which I hope to post later this week.  I hope you will read about a Lady most of us are blessed to know.  Look for "Leta" in the blog called "Knowing where We Came From".

Miscellany for Saturday morning.  Breakfast table  I am doing crosswords and crypto quiz, drinking coffee.  Mate is reading the paper and reads me an obituary.  "She has gone on to that great poker table in the sky".  Sweet looking lady in her 80s.  Family convinced she is playing poker in Heaven.  We all wonder what Heaven will be like.  No one but John knew for sure.  The one thing we know is that God the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit will be there and that's good enough for me.

This One's for Bryan Wade

Well you may or may not be old enough to remember Sparkle Plenty. For those of you who do not, I will fill you in.

Dick Tracy appeared in 1931 (even before my time) written and drawn by Chester Gould.  Still runs today.  Different creator but still basically the same.   An iconic strip reflecting the social time and happenings of the day. Tracy was the police detective to end all police detectives. He got in trouble, he solved cases, he was accused of crimes. Just an all around interesting fellow with the squarest jaw  known to the art world.

He finally married Tess Trueheart after a courtship of 18 years. If you work crossword puzzles you have  come across a clue that reads  "Tracy's wife". The answer is  "Tess".  Its used a lot.  Tracy introduced the first two way wrist radio to keep in contact with headquarters. It is credited with being a precursor to the cell phone. (I get all this marvelous information from  Wikipedia ) Tess and Tracy had their first baby, Junior.   Junior grew up and married an alien who later died (by the way the alien period did not go over well and that's why she was killed off by Gould)  Then he married Sparkle Plenty daughter of Tracy's good friends "B.O.  and Gravel Plenty".    They had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty, Jr.    I know you are absolutely mesmerized with this information.

Now all I have to do is tie Sparkle Plenty in with Bryan Wade. For those of you who might not know Bryan. He is a veterinarian. A doctor to small animals.  I don't personally know if he is a Super Vet but my good friends and relatives who are owned by Mollie the Poodle say that he is. That's plenty good for me. Soon I will find this out for myself.

This is for all intents and purposes an ADOPTION ANNOUNCEMENT  (no gifts please). We are now the adoptive parents of Sparkle, a three year old rescued white miniature Schnauzer, who spent most of her three years tied to a tree.  We just returned from Abilene where we picked her up.  I finally learned how to put a picture in here.  The one below is the actual ad from PetFinder.  She doesn't look like this now.  She has been groomed for the summer which means she has been basically shaved except for her face which still looks like a schnauzer.   I just haven't learned how to do more than one picture at a time yet. you can click on the picture and see her better.

We thought long and hard about this move. We have been searching Pet Finder for weeks looking at rescue dogs. Many reasons not to do it. The main one is, we are too old. HOWEVER: Before adopting we cleared it with our Ohio Nephew and Niece and with our Tennessee Grand Niece. In the event something happens to us they will take Sparkle. That's what her foster family called her and we will not change it because she should not have to undergo another change in her life. Many others in our family would take good care of Sparkle, but we think she would be happy in Ohio or Tennessee.

My niece in Oklahoma is going to shake her head. She is the only one in our family who is opposed to any dog in the house. We just ignore her when it comes to pets. My sister, will say "Why in the world would you want to get a dog at this point in your lives". She would also point out all the reasons we should not have gotten one but would be okay with it in the long run, just never get attached .

In any event another reason we got this particular dog is so that I could tie Dick Tracy, Sparkle Plenty and Bryan Wade together. Its not every day you get to do that.