Top 'O The Hill To Ye, Matey.........

Today I am 49 years old.  I have been christened a Warrior Princess and I will become a real grandmother for the first time this year.

Grandma's got a whole new "hair look".  Let us hope it's a good one.

If it's not, I'm just going to focus on the fact that I don't have to spend any more of what life I have left fixing it, worrying about it, or perhaps most importantly, buying product for it.

If you are a woman, and still in the throes of worrying about how you look, take a moment right now and do me a favor:  add up all the hours that you spend fixing and/or worrying about your hair.

Your hair, for God's sake.

It's kind of a lot of time, is it not?

Now, for added clarity, add the time you spend looking through your purse.

My bet is that these two things will add up to enough time to do a whole lot of things that matter a whole lot more.

Am I right?

Well, I'm done.  I've paid my dues.  I chopped that crap off and bought a little purse that only holds a few things, which turn out to be only what I need.  I've drug around a heavy old purse most of my life and those days are over.

The days of worrying about my hair?  Behind me now.

I have made peace with a lot of things, my hair being just one of them, and it has been time well spent.

Lately I've been feeling terrible about my house falling down around my ears and my not caring.....

And I realized that I have been working on things inside for about 10 years.  And I have done a pretty good job of getting everything in order there.  It has not been easy, but what worth having ever is?

Now, it is time once again to turn my attention to outside.  I have a lot to do.  This house has to be "grandma's house" by June, man, and I have got stuff to do.  Ripping up carpet and painting and...well, lots of stuff that does not include worrying about my hair, my purse, or anything else that used to matter so much to me.

I kind of hate to tell you this, but I grew up.  Yes, it happened to me, and it will probably happen to you.  It doesn't hurt except for mentally, and don't spend more time kicking yourself for stupid things you did, of which there will be many.  That is just a waste.  When you know better, you just do better.  You have to make yourself, no one is going to follow you around and make you.  (Well, this could actually be debated, but if I have my way, no one will ever do this.  We'll see, but I just choose to have faith.)

Should someone show up and start ordering you around, I suggest you resist strongly, immediately and permanently, because I can promise you, not only will you not like it, but it will not be good for you in the end.

You have to take responsibility for yourself and be willing to pay the price for whatever happens from there.

Yes. It's true.  Otherwise, there are no adults in the world and things get..............realllllly stupid.  Look around!  We are there.

I look out from the top of this hill I've been climbing for so many years, and I am just ready for whatever happens next.

I don't even really care what that is, because it's going to happen anyway.  All I can do is be ready.

I no longer try to imagine what that will be, partly because it makes me almost suicidally depressed, but mostly because I use the trick of remembering that my imagination is tainted by this world, and my mind cannot even imagine what God has in store.

I find a lot of comfort in this.  

I hope you do, too.

It's a good trick and if you live long enough you will master it also.

Practice, practice, practice.  Life provides nothing but, really, once you catch on.

Whatever comes next, here's to you.

I'm ready.

Here's to growing old gracefully, fully aware of all that you are and are not, and knowing what's really important.

No one will tell you, and I'm not going to either.

Some things you just have to know yourself, and you will.

I promise you, you will know when it happens to you.

To The Rock Star, On His 23rd Birthday

23 years ago tonight, I had my first child, my own Rock Star.

About a year ago I spent the weekend with one of my best friends, and we were talking about the night he was born.  We were reminiscing about my mother, who is now in heaven, and I got to hear the story from her point of view for the first time.  She said I screamed a lot.  A LOT!  During this time, she kept looking at my mother, who poo-poo'd the idea that anything was wrong.  My mother just kept telling her that this was childbirth and there was nothing to do but get through it.  Later, my mom said at one point she just wanted to jump up and scream "Just let me do it!!" but of course, that was not an option.  I think having my friend there to comfort actually helped her hold it together.

We laughed until we cried, that night, and then had a little trouble stopping crying.  It was so good to see her and realize how many things we had gone through, not just with each other but with each other's mothers.  The hardest times to go through often are the most cherished memories.  To realize that we were now middle-aged was a little easier to take knowing that we still had each other.  There truly is no friend like an old friend.

So The Rock Star was born, he was perfect, and everyone was fine, and my mother came home with us for the first few days.

I was, like most first-time mothers, very nervous and lacking in self- confidence, not to mention still trying to process the trauma of giving birth and what that left me to deal with.  Whew.  Remembering those days still makes me cry (and laugh) to this day.  I spent a lot of time with sitz baths and sat on a donut pillow for way longer than was recommended, even by my mother.

Totally worth it all.

My mom stood guard over The Rock Star at night, as every time he made the slightest noise I was convinced that he needed to be picked up, nursed, etc. and consequently no one in the house was getting any sleep.  My husband took this pretty much like a champ, even though I know there were probably moments that he considered throwing me and/or my mom or maybe even The Rock Star out a window.  Such is life with a new baby for a first-time parent.

Mom stayed for 3 days and on the 3rd night, without any discussion, she simply walked to the door and said she was going home.  My eyes flew open wide and I said "Can't you stay one more night?"  She smiled sadly and said "Honey, I have to get home.  You are doing fine, he is fine, and you guys can handle it.  If something happens, you just call and I will come back."  Then she walked out our front door and left us there to figure out the parenting thing on our own. Later, much later, after she was safe from having to come back and live with me, she told me she cried all the way home.  There she cried more and prayed for us constantly, giving up voluntarily the sleep she had been deprived of by necessity for the three previous nights.

After the she shut the door, I turned wide eyed to my husband, whose own eyes were wide. We did not speak a single word.  We just stared at each other for a full minute as the realization sunk in that we were on our own.  We knew in our minds that we were responsible and grown up now, and that this was life when you were a parent.  On the other hand, if there was any way possible to get out of this, we were willing to take it.  It was not to be.  We both swallowed hard and faced the fact that we were the parents now.  We were in charge.  I think we were both thinking that no one in their right mind should have left us in charge, but there was nothing to be done but to just do what came next.  This is a very important step in growing up, if not a popular one.  But that is life.  You manage.  You do not manage with grace all of the time, but you get through it.

You know what?  We did pretty good.  It wasn't long before The Rock Star got on a regular schedule.  The schedule was not one that we would have picked, as  he never in his whole life wanted to sleep before 11 pm.  This would prove to be a bone of contention for several years, but if you've ever had a new baby you know that as a parent, you conform.  New babies usually rule their worlds, and ours was no exception.

We went through all the usual things.  I cried a lot and railed about how "I felt like a cow, literally, and HIS life hadn't changed at all."  After all, he got to leave the house every day and, and, and TALK to people! He got to take a shower every morning, and go out in the world every single day. This was often followed by words like "Damn him!"  Needless to say, this leaves the poor new father, who has worries of his own, saying "What? What did I do?  What in the holy hell is wrong with you anyway?  Are you saying you want me to quit my job?  Isn't there some kind of pill you should be taking for this?"  You can see that it is a tough period of adjustment for everyone involved. If you think you understand this and have not yet become a parent, all I can say is "Just you wait."  Muahahahahahha.  All will be revealed in time, and if you think you're prepared, just wait!

Who did I rail to?  My mother of course.  She would sigh (heavier each time she had to listen to this) and try to point out that I was missing the best part of my life.  She would point out that I was the mother, I was the one who took care of the child.  It logically followed that he was the father, he was the one to support the family, and I probably should be grateful not only that he had a job, but that he got up and went to it every single day.  So gently did she chide me, and so crazy was she about her first grandchild, that it sometimes made me feel ashamed of myself.  As it should have, but that only added to what I saw as my misery.  It is hard to adjust from everything being about you (pre-parenthood) to nothing about you really mattering anymore (parenthood).

Being a new mother is an emotional roller coaster.  To this day I don't know any way of preparing women for this time.  Until it happens you are floating around on all these great hormones of happiness, and cannot believe anything could bring you down.  Then you have the baby, which makes you the happiest of all, and then you get home and you look in the mirror and you realize that you are no longer the you you have always been before.  Not physically, not spiritually, and least of all mentally.  All those warm, fuzzy hormones go away, and you find yourself in what feels like free fall. Instead of floating on the cloud you have been on, you find yourself plunging down into the depths of despair, worrying about everything from your babie's cord drying properly to the world at large not being safe for him to ever walk around in.  Nothing is as it was, even yourself, and you have a cold certainty in your heart that it never will be again.  Add to that the fact that there is nothing you can do about it and you have a recipe for a panic attack.  I must point out that the phrase "panic attack" is relatively new to our culture, while the period of adjustment after a new baby is decidedly not.  But if it makes you feel better, hey man, grab onto it and just try to keep afloat.  You will reach the shore, or at least a quiet eddy in the river of life, before long.  Whatever you do, don't give up hope.  This too, shall pass, and before long you will miss these days.

It's an intense trip, but one that you must make.  You can't get over it, under it, or around it.  You just have to go through it.  Hard as it is to go through, this is what makes you brave and gives you strength.  It's your training for facing the unknown, which is exactly what parenthood is, in a nutshell.  I can promise you that in 5 years, you will look back on this time and laugh.  At yourself.  And it won't even bother you at all.  As if that weren't enough, because of this time you will have such strength that you will be able to face scary circumstances in the future with grace and (seeming) calm.  You will be able to bring calm and comfort to others even when you are quaking in your boots inside, all because you have gone through this and come out the other side.  It's the same process as basic training for the armed forces.  It tears you down in order to build you up stronger.

Because in between the paralyzing terror and burning rages, there will be moments of quiet and humbleness and pure joy. Lots of them.  In time, these moments will outnumber the scary times 1,000 to 1.  I swear it's true.   In the quiet of the night, when it's just your little family together and your are safe and warm (and the baby/new mom is not screaming), you will know that nothing is ever going to be the same again, and that's ok.  Everything is changing and even though you are scared because you don't feel like you are in control, you have never been in control anyway, and everything is changing into something better.

I'd do it all again 1,000 times

The Rock Star made me a mother, and in a sense saved my life.  If not for him I would have continued to be an irresponsible, scatterbrained, shallow, selfish person.  If not for him, I would have never learned patience, gratitude, or what sacrifice is really about.  Before him, I did not really know what it was to love anyone else enough to actually be willing to give my life for them.  He changed all of that the minute he slid out of my body and into this world.  He made me into what I am today, and I can only thank God for him being such a funny, witty, smart and good person.  

I love him so much that I cannot leave him to this day without crying like a baby.  Even though he is 23, and The Beautiful Redhead almost 21, it seems so wrong to leave them after we have been together that I spend the first 10 minutes or so trying to see through tears well enough to maneuver through traffic without getting us all killed.  The twins don't even worry about this anymore.  They think it's normal. For us, it is.  Try as I might, I don't think this is ever going to change.

So I write this to you, my first baby, on your 23rd birthday, sobbing in the basement at my computer, with the twins explaining to their company that nothing is wrong with their mom, this is just what happens when she writes, (I suspect Stephen King has a different process), knowing and happy that you are out having a great time and living it up in Kansas City.  I hope you have the best birthday that you ever dreamed of.  I hope all your dreams come true. I always have, I always will, and that will never change.

On a lighter note, I would also point out that I was your exact age when I got pregnant with you.  No pressure, but you just rest assured that there will not be any happier person on earth than myself on the day that we find out you are going to become a parent.  I so look forward to that day, because I know I have the strength and grace to guide you through the hard times that it will assuredly bring. 

Of course I do, that is just the first thing in a long line that you taught me.

Happy 23rd, Taylor-boy.  You are so loved, have always been, will always, always be.

Daaayammm, that is one good looking man!

Insomno-maniacs!

It's been a while since I have had the energy to post.  It's been a while since I had the energy to do anything....OH WELL.  This sums up my life in general these days.  Funny how you find the energy when you need though, isn't it?

Times are hard, and getting harder.  We got a bonus at work.  I used it to stock up on meat and buy another gun.  Why would I buy a gun?  You might ask.  It is not just to protect the meat, if that's what you're thinking.

This summer our small little town has had a lot of theft.  Not your ordinary kind of theft that happens when no one is home.  Our thefts have happened right in our houses in the dead of night while we sleep.  Those of us who can sleep, that is.  Our thief likes to pop out screens and rummage through our bathroom cabinets and even our bedside tables.  It makes me shudder to even imagine it, but my neighborhood got hit at least 5 times.  

Have you ever seen the movie Stealing Home?  It starred Jodi Foster and Keven Cosner. In one of my favorite scenes, Kevin Cosner is an adult who has met up with his childhood friend in his hometown.  They go out and get drunk and then decide to go to his friend's childhood home and rummage around for their old baseball uniforms.  The friend's parents still live in the house he grew up in, but have for some crazy reason locked their doors.  This leads them to climb up and fall through a window that just happens to be between the beds of the friend's now-elderly parents.  The mother wakes up, sees Kevin Cosner, and instead of being alarmed that someone just broke into her house, let alone her bedroom, recognizes Kevin, pats him on the cheek and says "Oh, hello, dear.  How is your mother?"  He replies that his mother is fine and then she gives them a general direction to go find their old baseball uniforms and then goes back to sleep.

Until this year, this endearingly remarkable scene would have been pretty much exactly what you could expect to happen around here.  Until this year.

That was then.  This is now.

Without going into any more details I can say that the thief has been identified, caught twice, and let go.  You can probably imagine how happy and safe that makes us all feel.  Being from Missouri, and hence being armed, we don't let it get us down too much.  Instead we pay a lot more attention and sleep a lot less.

I might be able to tell myself that this is just a passing phase except for the fact that I have two sons still at home whom I consider "kids", but whom are as big as grown men.

Last weekend I had agreed to let one of their friends spend the night.  The boys had the not uncommon idea when walking home after dark to see is they could scare me.  I had the dogs in and all the windows open when I heard a strange knocking.  I was just looking to see what the dog's tails were knocking against when Jack growled.  Immediately after that, I heard my youngest baby say from right outside the window, "Jack!  You growled at me!!" and then realize that the knocking was not a dog's tail at all, but one of the boys walking on the porch up to the front door.  It was a good feeling to know that Jack would at least growl in a circumstance like this, as up until this point I was figuring that the only warning I would have would be the dog's tails knocking against the walls as they went to greet the thief.

We all laughed and I did not make a big deal out of it because I did not want to scare the boys.  Why put that worry into their sweet little heads if it wasn't, by whatever miracle, already there?

They spent the rest of the evening between our own house and that of a dear neighbor's, running back and forth and through a pond occasionally, playing hide and seek and running into electric fences and, most memorably, clothes-lining themselves.  They got to stay out till midnight.  It was a big night for 15 years olds, and a good one.  I just drank enough coffee to keep myself up until midnight, got the house locked up after they got home, and went to bed.

About 10 minutes later my oldest baby knocked on my bedroom door and said he had forgotten his phone charger at the other house, could he go get it?  Yes, he could, but come right home.  10 minutes after that he was home and I felt secure enough to go to sleep, for good this time.

About 1:45 am I was woken by the dogs barking.  Outside.  The dogs had been inside when I thought we had all gone to bed.  I immediately got up, opened the door to the basement, and called down to the boys.  My oldest baby gave a big sigh, as he always does when woken from a dead sleep, and blearily answered in the affirmative when I asked if everything was all right.  He replied, and I quote "we are sleeping".  I didn't investigate further because I didn't want to wake them all up.  That was my first mistake.

Have I ever told you what a good kid my oldest baby is?  I don't say it enough because it causes immense guilt about what light that puts my youngest baby in.  Something about twins makes you drive yourself insane trying to keep everything "equal".  You know it is insane but you still cannot stop.  I've learned to live with it but it is also the curse of my life.  And I do it to myself.  Anyway......

It was very suspicious that the dogs were out.  The one saving grace of my youngest baby is that he is stupid enough to always, always get caught.  I let the dogs in and went out to the front porch, where everything was quiet and peaceful.  I did not have long to wait until I saw two shadows walking down the street from the direction of the other house that the boys had spent the night playing at.  The two shadows are talking at normal volume, completely oblivious that there are most certainly several pairs of eyes and not a few gun barrels following their progress.  So oblivious are they that when they start to cut through to my own back yard my voice startles them.

My voice startled them because they had gotten caught sneaking back home, which was the biggest threat their little minds could imagine.

In their youth, and therefore incredible stupidity, they had taken the opportunity to go with my oldest baby to get the forgotten charger, and then stayed for awhile, getting my oldest baby to believe that they would not be long, and  thinking I was asleep and would never know the difference.  Last year I probably wouldn't have. 

But that was then. 

Then, they could have wandered the neighborhood they have grown up in at any hour of the night with the only consequence being that they would have "gotten caught" and been grounded.  That is exactly the kind of childhood I wanted for them, and a big reason why I live where I do.

But this is now.

We had a small confrontation on the front porch in the dead of night where their biggest concern was simply getting caught and being grounded.  That was the worst thing they could imagine.  That changed pretty quick once we got inside the house and I said "Do you have any idea how lucky you are that I didn't pull a gun on you?"

Dead silence, big eyes.  Blink, blink, blink.

"Do you have any idea how lucky you are that someone else didn't??"

Faces going dead white due to the blood draining away into the bottoms of their feet.  Know the feeling?  I daresay you do.  It was the feeling you got the first time you realized how much bigger the stakes were and how you had been sheltered from them because you were a child, and now you were not.

I have talked before about how the boys are old enough to start being grown up, but now it is vital that they get it through their heads and that it stays there.

So, between the hours of 2 and 3am last weekend, they received a long lecture from an exhausted, weeping, somewhat hysterical woman about how "we" (we being the adults in the neighborhood, the town, and America in general) were "hyper-alert" (scared, a little bit crazy, and with itchy trigger fingers, especially in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) and how they needed to "think" (assume the worst and take the necessary precautions) before they acted on some hare-brained teenage scheme (which constitutes most of what passes for their lives at this point).  I am sorry that they don't get to act on their crazy, hare-brained schemes.  What is being a teenager without crazy, hare-brained schemes????  But it is just too dangerous, and could have consequences that are irreversible, not to mention deadly.  Let's face it:  the chances of them being shot dead are not great.  However, the chances of them being shot are very good.  Very good indeed.

I think I got through to them, but then I always think that.  It's a fine line, parenting teenagers, between trying to protect them and trying to scare the holy living sh*t out of them.  For their own good, of course, not to mention yours.  They professed how sorry they were, admitted how stupid it was, assured me that it would not happen again, and we all went to bed.  For real this time.

I grew up in a town small enough that we did not have police.  Nor did we need them.  We had parents.  There was nothing we did that they did not find out, and yes, everyone had a gun.  Perhaps because of this, few ever needed to be drawn.

Maybe you believe that the police can protect you.  If so, I can only say God bless your little heart.  I don't want to burst your bubble, but I also don't want to have to defend you, too, when your dreams don't work out the way you thought.  I have enough on my plate as it is and it's nothing I can't handle, usually.  But every once in a while.......well, there is just a peace that comes with knowing that you can defend yourself if you have to.

And if you happen to be in Brookfield Missouri and get a hare-brained idea?  You should think twice.  We have police, but we do not necessarily feel the need to call and bother them for every little thing.  When things go bad, they seem to go bad real fast.  Have you noticed?

I wish I could say this was a phase.  God willing it is.  Just remember: better safe than sorry and act accordingly.  I could have made this a funny post but the fact is that this isn't funny, and I don't see any end in sight.  I hope that we will laugh about it for years to come.  Good years, where people are not getting robbed or worse.  I guess all we can do is hope and be ready to defend ourselves if necessary.

Until then, do not be surprised in insomno-maniacs are seen in your own town.

When I Grew Up.....

When I grew up, my grandmother's rose with the sun, cooked breakfast, and then cleaned house until noon. Their main job was to take care of their families and their houses, and they took that job very seriously.  They put their hair up in bandannas to dust, vacuum, and do laundry, dishes, and wash windows until noon, when they prepared lunch (for their husbands, who came home for lunch), cleaned up, and then took a much deserved and very much needed nap. 
Afternoon's were for preparing to go downtown.  This meant washing your hands and face, putting on clean clothes, lipstick for the ladies. Often jewelry would be worn.  Brooches were popular, as were scarves, held in place by brooches. 
Going downtown would include a trip to the grocery store, the post office, the drugstore for an ice cream soda, and various businesses up and down a centrally located Main Street, where every business owner and a good percentage of the customers knew you and your entire family for generations.  There were few strangers, and no one was a stranger for long.

If you needed gas, you drove to a gas station, where you drove over an air pump, which rang a bell, which told the attendant that a customer was waiting.  You sat in the car and the attendant came out and pumped your gas, cleaned your windows, would check your oil and various fluids.  These attendants would even be able to tell if you had a belt that was looking worn, or a spark plug problem.  These were back in the days when you opened the hood of a car you could actually see the engine, of course.  These were also the days when most men knew the parts, what they did, and owned tools to work them.  The attendant would also take your money and bring your change to the car, if you didn't want to get out.  It was a long time ago.

We played in back yards and in creeks until our mothers called us in for supper, then we were right back out there until after dark.  We played games of hide and seek and statues.  We would spin ourselves around until we fell on the ground and then laugh and laugh at how dizzy we were.  Occasionally we would not get up, and instead stare at the clouds for hours, finding shapes and making up stories that usually starred ourselves.  We were the stars of our own world, and we often ruled that world from the tops of trees.  You would be astounded to know what all you can both hear and see from the top of a tree, especially if no one knows you are up there.

Going to a movie was a big deal, and usually would only occur at a drive-in.  You would be piled into the car with various sacks of popcorn prepared at home and a cooler with pop, blankets and pillows, only to be dragged out in the middle of the night, at least half asleep, by a parent.

Saturday nights you would have a babysitter because your parents would go "out".  "Out" often was a "supper club", where they would eat steak, dance, and drink.  It was referred to as a "supper club" because it sounded much better than "bar", but this did not concern me at all.  I was busy teaching myself to tap dance like the guy on Lawrence Welk, which was always just fine with my babysitter.  The babysitter was intimately known to you, if not your cousin.  She did dishes and supervised sibling fights, knowing all the house rules since birth herself, and having no qualms about being sued for child molestation or abuse.  By anyone, least of all the children.  It was a long time ago.

If you didn't have a babysitter for Saturday night, it was probably because it was your parent's turn to have everyone over to play cards until the wee hours of the morning.  This meant hours of running and screaming through dark yards, free reign of the record player, and cake pans full of popcorn, as many as you could eat, all night long.  This popcorn was prepared by using oil, popcorn, and a big pan, on a stove, and always left unpopped kernels, which were scorned by most, but not all, children.  Eventually you fell over and slept wherever you were.  If you were very lucky, you could fake being asleep so that your dad would carry you out at the end of the night, saving you the rude awakening and shuffling over other children's supposedly sleeping figures.

Occasionally, a teenager would do "something bad" and everybody would be upset for awhile.  The kids didn't know what happened, just that it was "something bad".  But then the next thing you knew everybody was celebrating a wedding and planning a chivaree.  A chivaree is an occasion whereupon the newly married couple is set upon by "surprise" and then have their new house basically trashed.  Most times, inexplicably, the husband was goaded into pushing his new wife somewhere in a wheel barrow.  I do not have an explanation for this, other than that you had to get the couple out of the house somehow so you could trash it.  The grown ups seemed to think that throwing oatmeal all over someone's bed was funny.  I thought it was terrible.  They said I would understand someday.  That day has yet to come.....  Possibly it is some kind of ceremonial placing of the new couple on the same side.  Against their family and friends who would trash their house and leave them with this mess to clean up together.  Anyway, after that things would settle down and be normal again, the upset seemingly forgotten.  I do not remember any couple ever taking revenge and trashing anyone else's house.  I guess it would have never ended then, and for the good of the entire town you had to sit up and take your medicine, like a grown up, which you were supposed to be if you were married.  Let's not examine that any further here.  I really don't have that kind of time.

There were no "designer" brands of anything to my knowledge.  This was back in the days when mother's were home and made clothes for their children.  What your mom couldn't make you could order from a catalog.  Catalogs were really big and would be kept in a special place to be poured over for an entire year.  Even after they were out of date, they made very good door stops if one had the patience to fold down every sheet, making a rounded bottom and a pointed top.  Many had such patience, instinctively "re-using" and "recycling" any given material.  I can remember little "rugs" in front of kitchen sinks woven entirely out of bread wrappers, saved for just such a use.

Going out to eat was a big treat, especially if you were a child, as most restaurants were for adults and not designed, even their menu's, for children.  It was more common to get to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken, or a Dog 'N Suds, where a carhop on roller skates delivered hamburgers, hot dogs, and frosted mugs of Root Beer on a tray that hung right on your window.  There were no drive-thru windows, except on a few banks.

Saturdays downtown, many women would wear curlers in their hair, covered by headscarves.  This was before blow dryers, and I hear that far from being embarrassing, it was a mark of distinction (to be seen in public in curlers, that is) because it meant you had a date that night.   I am not making this up, although I do remember the first time I ever saw a blow dryer and a curling iron.  These items were very popular, sold like hot cakes, and whether by design or not, opened up a whole market for product to use on "damaged" hair that continues unabated to this very day.  The future would see small wars waged over whether these products were "tested" on animals, but that is another story, no less incredible than the rest of this strange story.

The Pledge of Allegiance started every school day.  Most everyone went to church on Sunday regardless of what they had done Saturday night, and no one ever, ever discussed how they voted.  It was considered bad manners not just to ask, but to tell.  I miss those days.

This Fourth of July weekend I hope you look around and examine the world.  Take a good hard look and compare it to what you grew up with.  Try not to cry.  How is America doing in your book?  You don't have to discuss it with anybody, just ask yourself.  That should keep you busy for awhile.  Think about having freedom and what it costs.  Then enjoy your holiday and teach your kids what really matters.  You know what it is, let's get back to it.