Category: Uncategorized

By: Donna Hale Chandler

I can remember as a child there was most always a pitcher of sweet tea in the refrigerator, particularly in the summer. For special dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., the fancy crystal glasses came out – only for the adults, of course. The children drank milk from jelly glasses so if one hit the floor, nothing of value was lost.

The ‘brewing’ of tea always seemed to be quite a production to me. Boil water. Place 3, or was it 4 teabags in the teapot. The tea bag strings with the label on the end must hang over the edge and held in place by the lid. The boiling water is poured into the tea pot, over the tea bags and allowed to steep. How long to steep? Always a mystery, but evidently if allowed to steep too long, the tea was too strong, steep not long enough and the tea was too weak. My mother must have had in inner timer because she knew exactly when that tea should be poured into a pitcher where it was immediately sweetened before placing it in the refrigerator.

If a guest wanted unsweetened tea — well that NEVER happened because tea wasn’t ‘finished’ unless it was sweetened and letting each person sweeten their own was unheard of, unless you were drinking hot tea and only rich people drank hot tea. Working folk drank coffee, black but we’re talking about tea.

For a treat my granny would have a tea party with me when I visited. She would pour hot tea into a pretty tea cup; make quite a show of stirring in a teaspoon of sugar, no more than 1 teaspoon. Then she would saucer her tea. Don’t know what that is? Well, it takes the ‘fancy’ right out of tea party because that’s when you pour a bit of the hot tea into the saucer under the cup. Holding the tea cup in your left hand, you blow on the saucer of tea to cool it and then drink it from the saucer. This is done until the tea is cool enough to drink straight from the cup. My granny was the only person I ever saw drink hot tea and the only person I ever saw who ‘saucered’ their tea. She was one special lady.

I still enjoy sweet tea and am thankful that it can be purchased already made at the grocery store. With my cooking skills, I’d surely burn the water.

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Grams use’ta say

“A good kiss must last at least 10 seconds.”

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THE JOURNEY
©By: Richard L. King

a poet, a prophet, a pauper with a pen?
someday we may discover,,, can’t be sure just when.

words flow like magic, leading him home,
destination a mystery,,, traveling alone.

first, from loneliness, ink starts to flow,
describing the journey,,, to where we don’t know.

mind filled with worry, pockets nearly bare,
hoping he’ll recognize,,, when finally he’s there.

fun times, sad times, times filled with pain,
each time his pen gets busy again.

mission accomplished? not yet it seems,
one day maybe,,, for now he still dreams…..

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #442About: Life’s Lessons

 “Teaching rather than preaching
generally obtains the best results.”

By: Donna Hale Chandler

I believe I’ve already established that the kitchen holds many challenges for me.  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, my now-adult children enjoy remembering the year that Mom nearly burned down the house.  Of course with each passing year the story gets wilder but basically facts are facts and you can’t argue with the truth.

At the time of The Great Turkey Fire we lived in Michigan where there was already a chill in the air and our heat had been turned on in the house.  It was going to be just the four of us for Thanksgiving dinner.  As a working mom, I would often over-compensate on holidays, trying to alleviate the guilt that would, at times raise, it’s ugly head scolding me for working so many hours, etc.

Naturally I had a list of foods to prepare.  It was going to be a feast – turkey with all the trimmings – enough to feed an army.  Watching the clock as our bellies started to grumble in anticipation, I decided to peek in the oven and see if the turkey had started to brown and if the little ‘button’ had popped out, which is pretty much the only way I would know if it was ready.

As  I eased open the door, flames rushed out toward my face.  Yikes!  I jumped back, letting the oven door slam shut as I yelled, “Fire!”  The kids came running to see what was the excitement was about.  My husband never moved a muscle from his recliner in the family room.  Disasters in the kitchen were an ordinary occurrence to him and he was not about to miss a touchdown.

I tried to peek again and from what I could tell, I’d used a pan that too small for the turkey and grease has spilled over onto the bottom of the oven.  My mind swirled with what to do for a grease fire.  Water?  No.  Baking powder, baking soda, salt?  Maybe.  I grabbed a box of each, quickly opened the oven door and threw a box of each item onto the flames, AND the turkey.  I have no idea which product worked but the fire went out.

I gently took the turkey out of the oven, wiped off as much of the mess as I could, poured out what grease was still in the pan, and as the button hadn’t popped yet, I sat it right back in the powder-covered oven thinking “Well, that should prevent another fire.  I’ll clean it tomorrow (or the next day)

The end result was a happy Thanksgiving and now the children had an exciting Fire Story to tell their friends plus a memory that keeps popping out like a button on a turkey year after year.

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Grams use’ta say

“The happiness in your life depends upon
the quality of your thoughts.”

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By: Richard L. King

I don’t rightly recall which birthday it was, but I was real young and I had that jackknife for a good many years. (It was never just a knife, always a JACKKNIFE.)   I remember makin homemade slingshots, usin the big blade on that jackknife to do the cuttin. I’d whittle them down to size, then using the small blade I’d cut an old inner-tube into strips for the slings. Using my jackknife, I’d cut apart a pair of old worn out boots to get the leather for the stone carrier. If they had nice tongues, one pair of boots would give you enough leather for about 6 sling shots. Not that you’d need that many cause once ya had one ya liked ya stuck with that one till it wore out, but a good slingshot made a valuable trading item. Ya might even be able to trade for another jackknife or maybe a whetstone. If you used your jackknife much, you needed a good whetstone.

I also remember pickin up cigarette butts to tear apart and use the tobacco to roll a cigarette usin the thin pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog for papers. I’d use my jackknife to cut the page to size, but other times I’d smoke them in a homemade corncob pipe. I’d use the big blade on my jackknife to cut a corncob down to about an inch and a half and hollow it out usin the small blade of my jack knife. I’d use that jackknife to scrape the outside of the cob to a smoother surface. Then I’d stuff the bottom with some clay from the creek bank. I’d poke a hole in the side with the leather punch on my jackknife then, using the big blade, I’d cut a golden rod stem down to about 5 or 6 inches and poke a piece of haywire through it to make it hollow. I’d stick that into the hole in the corncob and seal it, once again using clay from the creek bank.   It made a nice stem for the corncob pipe.

I remember ridin my bike 7 or 8 miles to Pleasant Lake and back and occasionally “coonin” melons at “the old log cabin” then usin my jackknife to cut them up. No matter where I went, I always had my jackknife in my right front pocket and a few stones in the other for use with my slingshot which was always in my right hand back pocket.

Sometimes I would climb to the top of the maple trees in the back forty. It seemed like you could see for miles from up there. I’d light up my corncob pipe and sit there for hours enjoying the sights. Then I’d use my jackknife to carve my initials as high up in that tree as I could possibly get.

Sure was a lot different back in the days before smart phones and You-tube….

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Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #348

About: Attitude

“Bad attitudes lead to bad decisions,
but bad decisions lead to better stories.”

By:  Donna Hale Chandler

I started shopping with coupons years ago, primarily at the grocery store. No matter now painstakingly I prepared for shopping day, I never seemed to be organized enough. I would spend hours scouring the newspapers for coupons. I’d sit at the dining room table with my scissors snipping away. Sometimes a page had coupons on both sides. This slowed down the process considerably, because then decisions had to be made. Which coupons were  the most important, or did I want 3 coupons from one side of the page and 4 coupons from the other side. It’s a process that takes time and talent.

Once in the grocery store it’s likely that I would discover that the money-saving slips of paper that I collected over the weeks were home on the kitchen counter. If I actually made it to the store with coupons in hand, they were never organized enough. I would be standing in the middle of the aisle trying to sort through these little scraps of different sized papers to find the ketchup coupon. Was it for Heinz or Hunts?

My ‘system’ was taking at least 1/2 day of my precious time off work. To make the shopping experience even more exciting, I’ve been known to accidently drop that wad of coupons on the floor. It’s amazing how far those little rascals can scatter and how difficult it is to pick that thin paper up from a sparkling clean smooth surface. I would notice other ladies whipping from aisle to aisle with their little plastic coupon holder attached to the handle of their cart and think, “Now there goes a Professional, for sure!”

Just minutes before the store manager was ready to accuse me of loitering because I’d been in his store so long, I would pull up to the check-out counter, unload my cart, and hand over the now sweaty, wrinkled coupons. With a slight frown the cashier usually handed back about half of them with an announcement, “These are expired.” I don’t know why this should make a grown woman hang her head in shame but it does. “Honest, Miss Cashier, I wasn’t trying to cheat the store out of 50 cents. I swear I wasn’t!”

These days, however, I am a member of the 21st century with my smartphone that is attached to my right hand at all times. Not only did I find the handy dandy Publix Shopping List App, I found their digital coupons. My scissors are now comfortably nestled in the Junk Drawer (a subject for another day). Before I head to the store, I go to the site, click on each coupon I want to use and a true blue miracle happens. All of those checked coupons suddenly appear on my Publix Shopping List — in the order of the aisles. It is a wonderful thing to behold for sure. Now perhaps a harried shopper will look over at me and think, “Now there goes a Professional for sure!”

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #354

About: Optimism

“Though frequently well hidden,
every negative also has a positive

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