Ray's driving lesson

When I was in college my sister Helen would use the family car when she went places with her boyfriend. My boyfriend, Ray, always took the bus. I found out why one day. He did not know how to drive. I told him I would teach him as I had been driving since I was twelve, sometimes the family car and many times my dad's pickup. Since my father ran a car repair business driving was old hat to us.

One evening Ray and I took the family car and went back to the river road where Ernie had fallen out of the car many years before. It was the road my uncle's cabin was on. I explained to him all the things to do and he seemed to understand. The road wasn't dirt now but gravel. There was still little traffic on it. We were doing fine and then for some reason he turned the wheel and drove into the ditch. A deep ditch.

We walked up to a farm house for help. Now you would use a cell phone but not then. The farmer let us use the phone to call a towing service. I did not want to call my parents as my sister had just had a bad wreck and I wanted to be sure they saw me when I told them.

Ray learned quickly and soon was able to buy a 1928 Chevrolet, which lost its axle a lot. My father would hear Ray drive away after we had a date and say, "He is going to need another axle." My father would find one at the junk yard and put it on for him.

Buster

I have Buster's picture on my BLOG and thought people should know about him. I love dogs and like to have one around. Buster is special. He is mostly Beagle but has a little mix. He is somewhere between five and eight years old. If you have ever watched the Animal Planet you know about the dog training at Lansing Prison. After they train them they go to a shelter. I am not sure whether it is a shelter at St. Joseph or Bonner Springs. He is named Buster because he busted out of prison. He comes to you with all his shots and has a chip in case he gets lost. Buster has some bad habits. He chews things--books, plastic toys, etc. A good friend told me to put Vick's Vaporub on a piece of paper and stick it in the books and that works. I lost a few books first. Mainly cross word puzzle dictionaries. It said he slept with his trainer but he and I soon learned that was not for us and with a little Vick's on my nose he sleeps on the sofa in the front room.

He is great on weather. If the weather is bad he is right there but if it is just a warning he relaxes and goes back to the front room. I know he would like to go for walks but that is out and I have a large fenced in backyard with lots of rabbits, squirrels and birds for him to chase. If I just close the screen door when he is out, he uses his nose and opens it. He does complain about some TV shows by wanting out when I am just about to finish them. They give you a list of what you should provide your dog and the only one I really fail in is I don't give him baths. Maybe I can train him to stand in the rain. You can see by his picture that he is a great treasure.

Stamp collecting

When I was about 12, stamp collecting hit the neighborhood. At the Dime Store you could purchase a green World Stamp book. You could buy an envelope of stamps for nineteen cents. It was a large envelope and contained a great many stamps. The only trouble was there were often 30 of the same stamp. You had sticky things to mount them in the big book. The Bossler boys had started the idea so we made Kenny president. Every originator of an idea we made president. I was the only girl so I had to accept their terms. Most clubs we started lasted one meeting. This went along for two weeks. We traded stamps and actually had two meetings. The second meeting Kenneth's mother sang to us. After two weeks we found when we traded with Jimmy we were not getting stamps back in trade. We did not know what to do. Then we had an idea. The boys would get his attention and I would take the stamps back. I took mine back and then I got his attention and one of the others would get theirs back. When we were through we felt very elated but it happened again. We kept it up. Him taking stamps and our getting them back. Then our interest ran out and we let him keep the stamps.

Pushing Ernie from the car

When I was growing up my parents were good friends with our minister. They even kept beer in our refrigerator for him since he could not have it at his house. My mother especially liked his wife. They would go riding in our car. The minister had four children like our family. One named Ernie was a year younger than I was. We were not in school so when they went for rides we were in the back seat. My mother liked to drive down the river road which was near the Kaw River and was dirt. Few secondary roads were paved but some were gravel. We were riding along and Ernie fell out of the car when the door flew open. I tried to tell the women that Ernie was not in the car but it took a mile. He was not hurt and except for being dusty and crying he was fine. I did not push him. After I was going with my husband and found he did not know how to drive, I taught him on that same gravel road, Of course the first lesson ended when he drove into the ditch, but that is another story.

games

On TV they were saying that children do not know how to play games as they all play the games on TV. I was thinking how much I enjoyed the games I played in childhood even though it was a long time ago. We played "Jacks", "Hop Scotch", and roller skated a lot. I still have the cracks on the sidewalk in front of our house memorized and lift my foot even when I'm walking. When you roller skated you learned things like that. The area I live in does not have concrete sidewalks which might explain why the children around me skate at rinks. Hopscotch is different as we do have concrete driveways to draw on. We played a lot of hide-and-seek. I think everyone having fenced in yards is why that is not played more. We rode our bikes all over and I think that is rather dangerous now. In the summer we played card games on the porch. Like "slam" and "Rook" and had many games of "Jacks." Hula Hoops are not that old and were not invented in my childhood. As an adult I was not good at that but had children who were. In the summer we all swam and that is still a popular summer sport. I was the youngest of four children and had a mother who liked to swim. With a small child that is a problem so at two she taught me to swim. At that time the city pool was 10 cents a day. My mother took me to the pool to watch the older three swim. At two she thought I was ready. She bought a Hershey bar and I got a square when ever I swam a few feet. I loved Hershey bars--still do. It helped keep my feet up as the city pool was only drained once a year so was mossy on the bottom and I did not like to put my feet down on that. As I got better I went with my family and we swam in the Kaw River (now known as the Kansas River). My cousin who was a lifeguard would sit in a row boat and watch us
The river floor is quite different from the pool and had lots of action in it. Also fish swam around you. Some of my grandchildren are lifeguards and good at it. They get to sit in a little stand and watch, I was 10 before I swam in the part of the pool that had lifeguards and by then I was taking lifeguarding class. I was generally the victim they rescued.

Weather

I tried this and pushed the wrong buttons and lost it. I was trying to correct my spelling and I will just leave things spelled wrong in the future.
Last night we had scary weather and received two inches of rain. The electricity went off once so all the clocks, the TV and things were wrong. In the kitchen I could do the microwave but the stove was more complicated. I could not reach the clock so I got the broom and reached it with that. The TV was another problem. The one in the kitchen was not in trouble but the front room was out of my limited knowledge and it took Cindy this morning to correct it, After that things calmed down and I knew I was out of danger because Buster was not nervous but slept on the sofa like nothing happened. For some reason I have three clocks in my bedroom and two I could get to quit flashing but the one I'm just going to unplug. I do not need three clocks.

Crossword puzzles

I like to work crossword puzzles. I think it is suppose to keep your brain alert but I just like to do them. The KC Star puzzles are good as they are not too hard. Now in the want ad section they have the New York Puzzles which I can generally do on Monday and Tuesday. Then they get too hard. My son who lives in Lawrence has two neighbors. One on each side of his house. The one on the west side can do them everyday. Even Sundays. The neighbor on the east side has a grandfather who has put out a great dictionary of names and etc which are great help when you do puzzles. One of my saddest losses was when my dog was new at my house and he chewed that book up. They have since given me a new one which I have a bookmark in with Vick's vaporub on it. My dog does not like Vicks. My daughter Susan can do the New York puzzle also. I don't know if on Sundays but some days of the week. I think my daughter Cindy can do them also. I use dictionaries made for crossword people. Buster chewed them up also. They too will have to be replaced with a new book.

Why I want to write

I am the widow of a man who was good at writing. He was a political writer for the Kansas City Star. I met him when I was a Junior in Topeka High School. He was a senior and the assignment editor of the High School paper. He assigned me the Girl's gym to write about every week. It is hard to get inspired about girl's gym especially at that time. he told me I was not very good. I already knew that. Every week you had to have so many inches in the paper and he did not think much of my stuff so I acquired my inches by collectiong for the ads in the paper. I managed to get a passing grade but it might have been helped by having an aunt on the school board. One week I even got "best of the week". Later in college I was acquainted with him again and I did not remind him of our earlier acquaintance but found he remembered. We were married over 50 years but I nerver tried to write again except for weekly letters to my family.
Now I take a writing class and am witing my life and other stories assgned me. I want to give this Blog a try.

Hi, I'm signing on as my granddaughter, Debbie, thinks the world would like to know my viewpoint on the world.

For Mary Grace

This blog is for my Grandmother. I hope she writes lots of things because I think she's a wonderful writer and I'd love to hear more from her.