YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street and I want your opinion about the most important on-off switch. Is it:
• The nuclear missile launch switch in the President’s briefcase?
• The ice cream machine at McDonald’s?
• The tv remote control during the halftime show at the Super Bowl?
• The tornado warning siren?
• The ringer on your cell phone?
And you’re right, of course, it’s the switch on the cell phone. Not so much to turn off the ringer when you are at church or a city council meeting or at a funeral, either.
The most important part is the switch on your cell phone because if you forget to restore the ringer you might as well be in Tierra del Fuego or Nova Scotia or Mumbai.
This happened to daughter Julie last week. She drove me in my truck to a doctor appointment in Hot Springs; respectfully turned her ringer off at the office; and then we went to lunch afterward.
We drove home. Julie dropped me off at my home and I went inside for a well-deserved nap. She got in her car and went home for a well-deserved nap. She wasn’t gone five minutes. Said she thought she left her phone in my truck. She searched but couldn’t find it in my mess. I used my phone to call hers in hopes we’d hear the ringer.
Nope. “I must have left it at the restaurant,” she sighed in misery.
She took off for the restaurant after calling to see if anyone had found a phone. We only got idiots at the restaurant, so she hit the road. Forbade me from going with her.
I felt guilty about not going, so after five minutes I took off in pursuit. She drives fast. I couldn’t catch her.
I stopped at a parking lot and durned if I didn’t find the phone. I called the Pike County Sheriff’s dispatcher and told her that my daughter was headed that way and that I had found the missing phone. I asked them to stop her or she would drive to Hot Springs and back needlessly. The dispatcher said their deputies would be on alert.
While I was sitting in the parking lot daughter drove past headed toward my house.
I pulled into the driveway right behind her. “When I got to the Little Missouri River something told me to turn around and look in your truck one more time,” she said before I held the missing phone.
Our thanks to the Pike County dispatcher.
=—-= — =
ANIMAL CRACKERS. Hanging around my swell new bird feeder is a small bird that stays in silhouette and my poor old eyes can’t determine its colors. I’m pretty sure it has some red, and possibly blue. It eats a lot for such a small bird. Maybe there’s a whole flock of them. If so, they only visit the feeder one-at-a-time.
Why did I have to get so old before I could appreciate birds?
=—-= — =
FREE ADVICE. This is offered at absolutely no charge to my elderly friends. If they also find this advice helpful, younger people should send $5 or a pan of brownies. I will wash and return the pan in a day or so.
The advice is actually a fabulous hint related to your overall well-being as you will see.
Here it is: If your toe talons snag when you try to get your foot through your underwear leg opening it is a sign it is time to trim the toenails.
And I’ve just had another breath-taking money-making idea: I should market some bubblewrap to protect us if we fall while trying to get those toes through the afore-mentioned tiny leg openings. Just wrap ourselves several times and don’t worry about a fall. We might even bounce back upright. You’re very welcome.
=—-= — =
REST IN PEACE. Late last week I learned of the death of Bert Johnson, great-grandson of Bert Johnson, the man who brought peaches to our area and who was an instrumental part of the beginning of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce.
By the time this column was written I was unable to get any obituary details for young Bert. He had a fine sense of humor and is a part of Scrapper football lore. He was an old-fashioned kicker of PATs, and we didn’t try many field goals in those days — only in desperation if the offense ran out of gas when close to the goalline.
One year the Scrappers made it to the playoffs and had to go to East Arkansas to play unbeaten Parkin on an absolutely frigid night. I didn’t think we had a chance.
But, Bert kicked a field goal late in the game and Nashville won. I can’t find the old volume of the ‘Nashville News’ from the late 1970s and am having to rely upon my memory. If any of Bert’s teammates can correct me please do. Let me know the year and the score.
=—-= — =
THINGS I LEARNED from opening email: “I want to tell you about a girl who only eats plants. You probably have not heard of herbivore.”
=—-= — =
WORD GAMES. The Home Safety companions: Lock and Key.
=—-= — =
HE SAID: “Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.” Daniel Webster, 14th and 19th U.S. Secretary of State
=—-= — =
SHE SAID: “They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.” Emily Dickinson, poet
=—-= — =
SWEET DREAMS, Baby
