This week has been, I would dare say exceptional for me, and mostly, it was today that pushed it over the top. Of course whenever I happen upon the opportunity to share some of the wisdom of my mother with other people is a special day for me. I sort of stumbled into a conversation with a couple of friends at work in concerns to their parents and their upbringings. (Both friends are older than me.) mostly the conversation seemed to revolve around how their parents got them to eat foods that they didn’t like. Well as usual it got me to thinking about my own dear mom. They said that their parents were like, “Eat it or else!” nope. Not my mom. My mom was way to smart to try to force anything on me, nope she was too slick for that, instead she would employ all of the most diabolical mom tools and tricks of the trade to ensnare me into her little trap. Let me explain.

As with most children in the late sixties or in any other period for that matter, the one sure fire way to get them to run away from the dinner table in sheer terror was to announce that there was going to be vegetables or anything else that was good for them served at the dinner. Well me being the youngest, I was always the last to know, everyone else would go to our older sisters house for dinner and I would be left behind to become the sole guinea pig. The first offering that I can remember was “Liver and onions.” the conversation as I recall went something like this:
“Hey ma? Where did everybody go?”
“They’re over at your sisters house, they’re spending the night over there, and having dinner with her and Richard.”

So, it began, her first entrapment, there on the counter was the bait, a small plate of cooked liver swimming in what looked like to me a sea of cooked sliced onions. It looked disgusting. But soon feeling the slowly building volcanic like rumblings in my vacant belly I had to ask.
“Hey Ma? What’s for dinner?”
As I now seem to recall, whenever she answered on those occasions she would always keep her back to me so I couldn’t see her face as she further baited her trap.
“Liver and onions son, now before you make a face, I made you a little plate so you could try it for yourself, I won’t force it on you, but I would like you at least try it first. Then if you don’t like it you can to wait until breakfast tomorrow morning before you eat.”

Now, granted, that’s probably not an exact quote, but I do recall vividly the part about waiting until breakfast to eat, so with my rumbling belly cautiously prodding me ever forward, I slowly began to examine the contents of the plate in front of me.
“Ma.. That looks yucky!”
“Well baby you don’t have to eat it, but its really pretty good.”
Now here’s where the words, Hook, Line and sinker come into play. She turned around and took the knife and cut it into little tiny pieces, and told me that it would make it easier to chew. So when she turned back to the stove I slowly edged the fork closer to the plate and sank it into the first piece, and ever so carefully lifted the fork to my mouth, and wouldn’t you know it? She was right,
I did end up liking it.

My brothers and sisters all thought I was a sucker, they told me that Mom played a mom trick on me. Meaning she got me to eat something that was good for me by tricking me into thinking that the whole thing was my decision. My idea. Well ma played that trick on me more times than I could count growing up, Broccoli, cauliflower, Spinach, you name it, and she got me to eat it willingly. But upon reflection, now I would be more inclined to think that it was testament to her talents in the kitchen, more so than trickery. If you think about it, nobody ruled the kitchen like our mothers, she could make anything taste great. She had that mom magic, nobody did anything like her, they never have and they never will, geeez, wouldn’t you know it? Now I got myself a hankerin for a plate of Liver and onions. I wonder if they make it like mom did?.. Naw.. Highly unlikely.

~Scratch~

- When your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you're barefoot.
- When your doctor doesn't give you x-rays anymore but just holds you up to the light.
- When a sexy babe catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door nearest you.
- When you remember when the Dead Sea was only sick.
- When your wife says, "Let's go upstairs and make love" and you answer, "Honey, I can't do both!"
- Going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out of your face.
- When you don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along.
- You know you're getting old when your semi-annual erection becomes an annual semi-erection!
- You and your teeth don't sleep together.
- Your back goes out, but you stay home.
- You wake up, looking like your driver's license picture.
- It takes two tries to get up from the couch.
- Your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.
- Happy hour is a nap.
- When you step off a curb and look down one more time to make sure that the street is still there.
- Your idea of weight lifting is standing up.
- It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.
- Your memory is shorter and your complaining is longer.
- The pharmacist has become you new best friend.
- It takes twice as long to look half as good.
- The twinkle in your eye is only the reflection of the sun on your bifocals.
- You look for your glasses for a half an hour, and then find that they were on your head all the time.
- You get two invitations to go out on the same night, and you pick the one that gets you home the earliest.
- You give up all your bad habits and you still don't feel good.
- You have more patience; but actually, it's just that you don't care any more.
- You sit in a rocking chair and can't get it going.
- You confuse having a clear conscience with having a bad memory.
- You wonder how you could be over the hill when you don't even remember being on top of it.
- You don't know real embarrassment until your hip sets off a metal detector.
- Let's face it, traveling just isn't as much fun when all the historical sites are younger than you are.
- Every time you suck in your gut, your ankles swell.
- You're suffering from Mallzheimer's disease. You go to the mall and forget where you parked your car.
- Age always corresponds inversely to the size of your multi-vitamin.
- Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
- It's harder and harder for sexual harassment charges to stick.
- If you've never smoked, you can start now and it won't have time to hurt you.
- People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
- Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
- Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.
- Your eyes won't get much worse.
- Adult diapers are actually kind of convenient.
- Things you buy now won't wear out.
- No one expects you to run into a burning building.
- There's nothing left to learn the hard way.
- Your joints are more accurate than the National Weather Service.
- In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
- You're sitting on a park bench, and a Boy Scout comes up and helps you cross your legs.
- You light the candles on your birthday cake, and a group of campers form a circle and start singing "Kumbaya."
- Someone compliments you on your layered look.... and you're wearing a bikini.
- You start video taping daytime game shows.
- You wonder why you waited so long to take up macramé.
- At cafeterias, you complain that the gelatin is too tough.
- Your new easy chair has more options than your car.


So far I think that I am reasonably safe. But I'll still have to go over the rest of the list first though.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Labor day: how it came about; what it means.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The first Labor Day.
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

A Nationwide Holiday.

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.
The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.
HAPPY LABOR DAY!!!

~source. U.S. Department Of Labor. WWW.dol.gov.~

Here lately it seems that I seem to do all of my best, my clearest thinking at night. Maybe I have always had that tendency, but I don’t ever recall noticing it before, but it seems to be the case at least in my recent memory. So, tonight, I find myself in a familiar posture, alone in my dark living room in front of yet another blank screen patiently waiting for my touch to bring it to life. A fan in the window carries a slightly less than warm late summer breeze through my personal space, the faint scent of freshly brewed coffee fills my senses, Its not warm in here, yet strangely not cold either, the mood is perfect for a little reflection. Is Heaven real? Hmmm. Its as good a question as any I suppose, I saw that written somewhere, or perhaps I heard it spoken, I don’t really recall, only that it was recently brought into place somewhere in the back of my mind this week, and it appears to have stayed there until now.

I knew Heaven once, I lived there, somewhere in my early childhood, and on some nights, some like this night, I can close my eyes and see it as plain as day.
There is a wooden floor beneath my bare feet, my small hands clutch the brass doorknob , and it turns freely, I give the door a slight nudge and it swings outward onto a back porch that seems slightly sloped to one side. I step out into the early morning air, the fresh dew, and the grass seems to flow out into the world forever, in an endless sea of beautiful green. There are large trees that stretch up into the sky for miles on end, and on one of the lower branches there is a tire swing that hangs strangely still as if it were waiting for the next ride. And as I step onto the grass the cold dew seeps up and over the tops of my feet giving me a strange sensation.

I’m not sure what it is truthfully, whether or not the world really was a much larger place then than it is now, or if it just seems that way, because I was seeing it through the eyes of a child. It was more magical, there was more wonder, and Heaven was a real place that I lived in, a place that I touched regularly. Now, as I begrudgingly return to the here and now, and that childhood memory slowly fades, I find myself wondering if I will ever see heaven again. oh I am certain that I catch glimpses of it every now and then, but the magic isn’t what it once was, and the open spaces in the world of childhood have become somewhat cramped and closed in. but thankfully the world can still be a place of wonder, You just have to force yourself to stop what you are doing every once in awhile to take part in it.

Yes, I know Heaven to be real, I just don’t live there anymore, I don’t see endless fields of green, and miles of empty clean blue skies, and a lot of the trees have been cut down, to make room for new housing tracks. I am not a child anymore, I don’t see the world the same way as I used to, it is a bit smaller now, and I can see it for what it truly is. I see the bad with the good, and take both as I see fit. Everyone has their own interpretation of Heaven, and certainly to some it remains a myth. The reality for me is simple, I know that I will never be able to again see the world through the eyes of a ten year old child, but that doesn’t mean that I have to stop trying. So on finding Heaven? I guess it all depends on where you look.

~Scratch~

Ahhh Sunday.. Is it supposed to be a day of rest? Or a day of peace? I suppose it could be both. That would be rather lofty all things considered that has happened to me today. I rode the bike to the market this morning, nothing special, I got there and locked it, went inside, bought some milk, some soup, some pasta and other assorted goodies, came back out to find my rear tire was flat as a penny. So seeing as how I only live a few blocks from the store I put the bags over the handle bars and pushed it home.

On the walk home I almost got hit by two inattentive motorist’s not once, but twice. I finally made it home in one piece and humped the load up the stairs and got everything put away before removing the tire from the rim to inspect the tube. I found a small leak and thinking that I found the culprit I patched it and replaced the tire onto the rim and aired it up. Long about lunch time I headed over to Red’s for Lunch. I once again locked up the bike and went inside to have lunch. When I came back out , not only was the tire flat again, but there was somebody’s pathetic excuse for a lap dog peeing on it.

I chased it off and once again found myself pushing the bike home, in over five blocks of walking, I had people honking their car horns at me, one guy yelled “Hey Dumbass you’re supposed to ride the F**king thing!” I was berated by a group of obnoxious teenagers, ( safely from across the street.) I think its safe to say that I didn’t have much in the way of a day of rest. I took the tire off from the rim again and upon removing the tube found two more holes in it from the ride over to Red’s old 395. I fixed it again and aired it back up and so far its holding air, but I had best be careful on the ride to work tomorrow, I may end up getting hit by a train, and we don’t even have them here except at the railroad museum. I thought crap like this only happened on Mondays. I hope everyone enjoys their week.

~Scratch~