Importing products

I think I will ramble for a while.

I hear that, a lot of businesses are complaining about the drop off of business, people who use to drop into the restaurants 2 or 3 times a week, but now they only see some of them once and some of them once every couple of weeks! The restaurant owner was talking to a news reporter last week about his business dropping off and it looks like he will have to lay some workers off if it doesn’t improve! Let us say that these customers were producing a lot of the merchandise, fruit and vegetables that these businesses sell to their customers. The very people who provide raw materials to these businesses, the beef and vegetables to the restaurants, Toys for the kiddies, cabinetry and furniture for the furniture stores, the paper mill, the automobile dealerships and all the other places of business around a typical city.
Let’s look at it like this; the restaurants around town, have started to buy their food products from another country to save a dollar or two on this and that. The auto dealerships are importing other country’s autos. The cabinetry and furniture are being imported. Dangerous toys are being imported; and when their business starts to dwindle, they start crying and asking, WHY? It’s because a few workers at the cabinet shop were laid off, and a couple lost their jobs at the auto dealership and all the others. The money they use to make wasn’t there anymore to spend at the businesses around town! Some couldn’t pay their rent / house payments, so what happened to these people? Well they had to go on welfare just to survive! And who pays for that? The people who still have an income and paying taxes, that’s who! It is my opinion that if someone decides to stop trading with a place of business, then they should tell them, when they start supporting the community, state, country, whatever the case, then they will support their business! I know that you can see where this is going!
Now taking everything into consideration, and for the savings of a couple of dollars, the city is slowly being destroyed and in the long run these businesses are losing in a big way!! With this one city about to die, there are a lot more following suit! And for the life of me, I can’t understand how these corporate heads, with all their education and foresight can’t see this coming! I, with my limited education can see it! I can’t help but think that they do see it coming and just don’t care as long as their pockets fill up first!!
The farmers lose their farms, the waitresses, the automobile dealership sales personnel and mechanics lose their jobs. The auto makers lose their jobs. The people don’t trade their cars / trucks in as often and don’t go out riding around as before because of the price of gas. Hey it’s like a snow ball rolling down a high mountain, it grows with every rotation!! Property / home sales are down. And this is just the tip of the iceberg!
There are so many people who are supporting these companies that import most of their product from other countries to make a little bit more without thinking about what it’s doing to their own community until it impacts them personally! $$$$$$$$$ is the bottom line. My mother and aunt were once told by a neighbor that if they went across the state line, they could save a few dollars. My mother told her that if everyone did that, what would happen to our town?

Think about it! Do the math !
I am talking about MAJOR JOB LOSS!!!!

That’s another one of my opinions..!!
And Pet Peeve

I’m wondering if anyone out there agrees or disagrees with me??
JD

Link Loving 2008

This came from Jo at Bits and pieces.

I have randomly selected 5 of you below to be tagged and I hope that you will similarly publish this post in your blog. You will have to tag 5 other bloggers and just keep adding on to the list. (Do not replace, just keep on adding! Yes we hope it will be a long list!) It’s real easy!
Tag others and see your Technorati Authority increase exponentially.

The benefits of Viral Linking:- One of the fastest ways to see your technorati authority explode!- Increase your Google PageRank fast- Attract large volume of new traffic to your site- Build your community. - Make new friends!

Add your blog url at the end of the list... The Strategist Notebook/Link Addiction/Ardour of the Heart/ When Life Becomes a Book/The Malaysian Life/ Yogatta.com/What goes under the sun/ Roshidan’s Cyber Station/Sasha says/Arts of Physics/And the legend lives/My View, My Life/ A Simple Life/What Women REALLY Think/Not Much More Than This/Jayedee/Jenn/Beth/ Christie/Marla/Cailin/Simone/FlipFlopMom/Katrina/Gill's Jottings/Work of the Poet/ Wakela/Modern Day Goddess/Livin With Me/Are We There Yet??/The Erstwhile Librarian /Lynne's Little Corner of the World/Violetlady At Home/Bits And Pieces/ JD's Soap Box/ You are next...

Sue at Sweetgrass Farm

S at The Black Cat Lounge

Jim at Rural Way Of Life

Mysti at Mysti's Spiritual Journey

Blossom at Blossomcottage

NOW TAG/ADD 5 OF YOUR FRIENDS' BLOGS.

Ordering on line

~Another Pet Peeve~

Ordering on line and their return policies
“PASSING THE PROVERBIAL BUCK”

Have you ever ordered a product though the Internet? And after 4 to 6 weeks it gets to your address. You open the package and find that it isn’t what you ordered or, it doesn’t work, or it’s broken? No matter what the reason, you have to send it back to be exchanged, replaced or fixed? Now, this is where the fun starts! You find the contact number on the shipping label; it’s a toll free number, good thing! It has been my experience that most of the time a woman will answer with something that sounds like, “Thank you for calling, then name the company,”, how may I help you?” Then the fun starts again because you can’t understand half of what she is saying because of her accent that can’t be recognized! Then you start explaining your problem to her and she asks for your name, address, phone number, date of purchases, date of delivery. Then she asks for the item number, shipping code and a hundred more questions. After you give all those answers, she tells you that she is connecting you with the shipping department and there comes that music indicating you are on hold!! And every 3 minutes or so, a recording will come on telling you that you are a valued customer and waiting for the next available operator! Well, that always told me that I need to get a good soft cushion and a tall glass of something to drink because I was going to be there for a while! FINALLY.. A voice on the other end said, “How can I help you?” Well you take it for granted that ALL that information you spent so long dishing out before was all entered on their computer…. NOT..!! All over again! By this time your butt is so sore you feel like saying, “To hell with it”! But, you hang in there because you have a good bit of $$$ tied up in this product and after you have gone through all the information again, the guy on the other end tells you that he has it all entered and is transferring the call to Human Resources to document my claim and there comes that infernal music again, after what seemed like 2 hours, a voice comes on and asks, How may I help you, I tell her what the other guy said and she asked, “What was his name”? Yep, you guessed it………Remember that old song, ‘Starting All Over Again’! _^&^%$&^*

Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

L.H.O.M.

I just thought I would give you a little background about the 2 of us, and show you what Jo and I are so proud of..!

4 years ago when Jo and I moved into our, (Little House on the Mountain), picture #1 and #2 is what we had. By the time this picture was taken, I had cut and cleaned up most of the underbrush in the front yard. It had been let go for so long that undergroth was chest high and the only access was a 3 ft. wide, stone lined walk with woodchips between the stones leading to the house. If you look at the left side of the house, you can see how thick it was. The electric meter is on that side and only a narrow trail for the meater reader led to it. The undergrowth was up against the bunkhouse on the right side of the picture! By the time I had the largest part of the brush and briers cleaned out of the front yard, I knew that the job was too large for us to do by hand. So I called a young man with a bulldozer......... Smart move!!

Pic-#1

Pic-#2

Picture #3 reflects the hard work that went into improving the grounds.
And picture #4 show’s that Jo and I have doubled the size of our,
(Little House on the Mountain)…!

Pic-#3

Pic-#4

Diabetes

Hello Friends, I thought I would let in on some information about Diabetes. My wife has this problem and has done some extensive research on the subject. If any of you, or someone you know has Diabetes, then I suggest strongly that you stop by her Blog! That address is, -

http://www.jonjdsbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/

You might find something that will help you down the road….. I really think you will enjoy reading her blog, actually it’s both our blog but she’s the one that keeps it alive. She has a gift with words that I don’t have.

~American Suicide~

~American Suicide~
I checked with Truth or Fiction at the address below and found that this is TRUE…!
http://ss659.fusionbot.com/cgi-bin/ss_query?keys=American+Suicide&sitenbr=120222903

American Suicide.........Very sobering

I recieved this from afriend, now I'm passing it to you!
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We know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington , DC , filled to capacity by many of America 's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration - both legal and illegal was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.
Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States . He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America . It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"
"Here is how they do it," Lamm said:
"First, to destroy America , turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put itis way: 'The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.' Canada , Belgium , Malaysia , and Lebanon all face crises of national e xistence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, Corsicans and Muslims."
Lamm went on:
" Second, to destroy America , invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. Make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal; that there are no cultural differences. Make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds/SPAN>

"Third, we could make the United States an 'Hispanic Quebec ' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multi-ethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentriy and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.' Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to en sure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."
" My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority plation."

"My sixth plan for America 's downfall would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precet. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia , threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. "E. Pluribus Unum" -- From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we will " Balkanize " America as surely as Kosovo. '

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits. Make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'xenophobe' halt discussion and debate. Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-cultum, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology,' I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America , it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."
In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book 'Mexifornia.' His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America . If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."
There was no applause.
A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Even barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate 'diversity.' American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America Take note of California and other states. To date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." In that story, three slogans are engrd in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."
Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.

If you care for and love our country as I do, take the time to pass this on just as I did for you.
NOTHING is going to happen if you don't!

Another Pet Peeve

Re-stocking fees!!

Re-stocking fees? Whatever happened to Customer Relations?? How much trouble is it to put it back on the hanger, or slide it back on the shelf? Normally, it’s being returned so the customer can buy something that fits, or that they like! Just what would they be doing if you didn’t have anything being returned, drinking coffee? I wouldn’t mind it so much if the employee was getting that, “Re-stocking fee! It seems that businesses just keep thinking of ways to dig around in your pockets and root out every coin you have! The only thing I can say is to ask what their return policy is before you pay for it and if they tell you that there will be a re-stocking fee if returned, do like I’ve done in the past, just drop it on the counter and tell them to go ahead and re-stock it now for free. If enough people would do that, I think the re-stocking fee would fade away….…

This is just one man’s opinion
What do you think….?
JD

Tax Reminder

I got this reminder in my E-Mail this morning...

DON'T FORGET TO PAY YOUR TAXES..!!

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21 million illegal aliens are depending on you!

Muchas gracias

This is not meant to be funny, Because it's NOT..!!

Taxes

Taxes!!

We, the working men and women work our butts off to earn enough to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and cloths on our backs. And that’s after TAXES, and that’s not always enough to do the job. These folks are what are referred to as (the middle class)! Now, our taxes are taken out of our pay checks before we get it. Now, most of the business owners pay quarterly, by-annually or annually! OK, now it bugs the devil out of me when they get so far behind in their TAXES that it’s impossible to pay it back. But, hey, that’s ok; there are outfits out there that will negotiate that amount down for you. One man got on TV and told us that he owed $200,000.00 to the IRS and this amount was negotiated down to $40,000.00! Now that makes me wonder, who has to make up that $160.000.00??? That amount would have gone a long way to help a school district in financial trouble! Or helped fix a few pot holes in an interstate somewhere! But no, that school district had to raise taxes to cover that $160,000.00, or those pot holes will just have to stay there and make people dodge them and get into a finder binder in the process, or worse! That is just a couple of examples of the problems that can, and will come up! Think of all the negotiating going on every day to, in my opinion, cheat on their taxes! Now, If I could go that long without paying my taxes and get the total up there where I would, ‘qualify’, and all the time rat-holing what I was supposed to have been paying all along, then have someone negotiate the total down by 75%, hey, I would come out smelling like a ROSE!! And you would be covering for ME… How about that…!! We, the middle class are the ones that are covering for these people that are doing all the NEGOTIATING!!! Just gets my goat!

That’s another one of my opinions..!!
~And Pet Peeves~
What do you think?

JD

Those Donation / Survey Calls..!!

My pet Peeves
Those Donation / Survey Calls..!!

Have you ever been sitting in your recliner, your belly full from just getting up from the dinner table watching your favorite program on the tube and it happens…! The phone rings, your wife answers it, the guy on the other end asks, “May I speak to the man of the house”? Of course the answer is “Yes hold on” and hands you the phone. You struggle to get the remote out from under the cushion that you are sitting on. After what seems like an eternity, you get the remote and mute your volume. By this time you’re aggravated, because it took so long to find the remote and mute your program that you bark into the phone, “HELLO”, there is a pause on the other end, then the guy on the other end introduces himself and starts in on his pitch about the charity organization that he represents and what they intend to do with the money that they collect. You being a retired person on a fixed income and your insurance keeps going up, your house note is due, home owners insurance seems like it goes up a little more each month and you just found out that the Co. you worked for is moving to Mexico and you don’t know what is going to happen to your retirement money, or whatever your reason is for not wanting to hear all this. You say, “Sorry pal, but things are kinda stretched out right now so I’ll have to pass”. The guy on the other end is persistent and doesn’t want to take no for an answer! Or, it might be someone trying to sell you something, what do you do, use a few choice words and hang up? Well here is what I’ve used, when they start into their sales pitch, I ask for their credit card number, there will be a short pause then they will ask, "What do I need my credit card number for?" I tell them that I charge $25.00 per interview, either they give me their credit card number or this call is terminated! That’s when you hear the ‘CLICK’…! Well by this time, your movie is shot anyway so you might as well go polish your bowling ball,…….. or something…!!,

This is just one man’s opinion
What do you think….?
JD

John's Comment

Hello Friends:
I got a comment from John concerning my immigration post. Brother John has a very good complaint and I feel the same as he does! If you read John’s comment on immigration under, ‘My Pet Peeves’ you can read his feelings on the subject. Now John went through miles and miles of RED TAPE, forked out many $$$ to be admitted while all these illegal’s are slipping into the USA and getting all the benefits that they don’t deserve! I sympathize with you John, and look at the hard working, Taxpaying American and legal immigrants that have, Pledged Allegiance To The Flag of The United States of America, that are holding up the economy! Thank you for stopping by John……

Immigration

Immigration, I’m not against Immigration as long as it is conducted legally! Have a sponsor, a job, a place to live, read and speak English, an all the other required registrations by our country! The only way I would agree with the, ’Guest worker program’, is if all our laid-off people were working first! With so many company’s moving out, and all these illegal aliens moving in, there’s no wonder that we have so many people losing their homes, automobile’s and basically their lives! Bush said we should allow these illegal aliens to stay because they have been working and paying taxes, yeah right! Today I heard on the news that our government is considering making it against the law to ask what a person’s immigration status is, Can you believe that?? If this is voted in, how is an employer going to know if he / she will be breaking the law if they hire this applicant? OH, and what do you think about the, ”Mexamerican National Anthem”?? Yes, that’s what I said, ”Mexamerican National Anthem”, I understand that it has, or is going to be re-written in Spanish…!!! I don’t know if that’s what it’s going to be, or has been named.
Just think of the boost in our economy if these people were deported and have these people come back in through the proper channels and requirements…! Our schools would be a lot better funded; our welfare system wouldn’t be so congested, This list could go on and on………!

Just one man’s opinion
Do you agree or disagree?
Click on ‘Comments’ to let me know!

C. B. Radio

You know sometime you hear or see something that sparks a memory of the things you use to do, or the organizations that you’ve belonged to. Well I was going through my profile and thought I would go through my interests list and settled on, ‘Country Living’. As I scanned through the list I ran across a person in Australia, and I remembered a Man in Melbourne Australia that I used to chat with almost every night on my CB radio. His name was Allan. Now this was back in the mid 70’s to early 80’s, it was on one of the upper frequencies on Sideband. I was in Southwest Louisiana and it was about 9:30 pm in Louisiana and Allan was eating lunch the next day in Melbourne. I thought it was pretty neat, given the fact that it was on a directional antenna that I built myself. It was a 4 element shooting star, along with a Maverick 250 upper and lower booster backing up a President Washington 40 channel upper and lower sideband. Anyway, in 1973 a group of guys were on the air chatting and one of them suggested that we have a, ‘coffee break’, and invited anyone who was listing to join us at the West Lake Park. I think that there were 8, maybe 10, (I have a bad memory) people showed up and as we all got to know each other someone said, Hey, why don’t we form a club? Well that how it got started! We got back on the air every afternoon after work and talked to a lot of people and decided to have an organizational meeting. We set a date, time and place and when everyone got there we held an election of officers! To make a real long story real short, after about a year and a half, the president resigned in midterm and as Vice President, It was my job to finish the term. I was re-elected the next 2 elections. I had just started building my home and had to resign because I was unable to conduct club business as I was working evenings and weekends on the house. I guess you are wondering what the name of the club was. The name was, “Bayou ‘C’s C B Radio Club…! By this time, we had 173 families. We had a youth club that elected their officers and conducted their business themselves. We had a Non-profit tax exempt and Charter. Our charity was the Muscular Dystrophy. In 1975 we had one of the largest Jamboree’s / Coffee Breaks, in the South! We were able to donate almost $6’000.00 to the Muscular Dystrophy. There were other ways our club served the community and travelers. We helped re-store the old Rail Road Depot to convert it into the Depot Museum In Sulphur La.. We would set up at the road side park on Interstate 10 west of Sulphur on Holiday weekends and invite travelers to stop in and for some free coffee and donuts, soft drinks and stretch their legs and wake up before they got back on the road. Everyone who stopped would sign in, we had people from all over the US stop in for a rest. We were able to get the supplies from local merchants and gave them credit in the American Press.

Oh, by the way, My Handle locally was, The Lord Braxton. And on Skip, it was The Unit 41 S.W. Louisiana. I talked to people all over the United States, Canada, South America, Australia, The U.K., U name it…. Anyway, I thought I would through that in…..

Another Pet Peeve

I copied this out of. Truth of Fiction
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/hershey.htm

Here is the address for Truth or Fiction so you can read it for yourself.
Hershey's Chocolate Is Moving Some Operations from the U.S. to Mexico-

Truth Summary of the eRumor: The eRumor laments that the American Hershey company that makes Hershey chocolate products is moving to Mexico.

The Truth:

There is a significant move by Hershey from the United States to Mexico in what the company calls a "global supply-chain transformation." Not all the operations are making the move but according to a June, 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times about 3,000 of the company's 13,000 employees will be cut.About 900 workers are to lose their jobs in the company's home town of Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Hershey plant in Oakdale, California, is closing down. Operations there are being moved to Monterrey, Mexico.The times quotes Hershey CEO Richard Lenny as saying that labor costs in Mexico are 10 percent less than in the U.S. and that by 2010 the changes will save shareholders $190 million

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This, my friends just reinforces my fear for a lot of Americans who made this company what it is today. Not to mention all the Americans who bought their product! Now we all get the Royal slap in the face! Don’t be fooled by the numbers they predict, 3,000 jobs lost, you can bet it will be a lot more as time goes on. And I’m here to tell you that the only thing that will make those numbers climb will be their gross income! And what will increase that gross, everyone one who buys their product! It darn sure won’t be me.. I’ll not buy another, Hershey's Chocolate Product.. Where are these 3,000 people going to find work when all these companys are moving out of the country?

This makes me wonder, who’s next, how long are we as American going to put up with this kind of treatment? Everyone seems to be interested in lining their pockets and to hell with everyone else. I think we all should be making some real nasty phone calls..

I also wonder, Is this only one man’s opion??
What do you think?
JD

No Greater Pain..!

In the life of a parent or grandparent, the greatest pain they can suffer is the loss of a child or grandchild. It never seems right that a child should leave this world before the parent or the grandparent. Their young lives just beginning.
Today would mark our Warren's 15th birthday. He was taken from us April 8, 2004 by a teenage driver that should not have been behind the wheel of a vehicle. We discovered through all of this that the value of a human life in the state of Louisiana is a couple of small fines and a slap on the back of the hand for the driver.
I debated rather to do this blog on Warren's birthday or as a memorial in April. I decided it would be more fitting to celebrate his life than to again mourn his death. Time has eased the pain for all of us that knew and loved Warren, but the loss of such a wonderful child will be felt long into the future. All that knew Warren will agree that just having him in our lives even for the short time that he walked among us was a blessing that God bestowed on each of us.
As one memory of Warren I recall the time that we visited the family when they lived in Ponca City, OK. We had taken Warren bowling for a few hours. Grandpa had a little surprise in store for Warren and his Mother. He had it hidden in his pocket. After sending the ball down the lane he turned around to give Warren and Angela a big toothy grin. He had picked up a set of "Billy Bob" hillbilly teeth on the trip there and had popped them in his mouth before smiling. I am sure that Angela wanted to just disappear at that time. Warren however was a totally different story. I remember his laughter and the light in his eyes. His eyes said it all .......... They spoke volumes of the love that he had for this Grandpa of his that would do anything to make him happy and bring him joy and laughter.
I want to leave you with a link to Warren's Memorial Web Site that I built for him in 2004. Please join us in celebrating Warren's Birthday today by hugging your children and grandchildren and telling them how very much they mean to you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY WARREN!

My pet Peeves

My pet Peeves

I don’t know how many of you got that e-mail that was going around back in September, I think it was, that how nice it would be to send a few extra Christmas cards addressed to Walter Reed Hospital for a recovering American Soldier. Well I got one and I sent 6 cards. Today I got them all back marked, “Return to sender”…! I understand now that they will not accept them unless they are addressed to a specific soldier…! Now that really got to me, for the life of me, I can’t understand why they couldn’t just pass them out, and the soldiers could pass them around!

I just wonder how many cards were ”returned to sender”?

What do you think….?
JD

My Background-2

If you remember, I told you that I would give you a run-down on my grandma.
I guess the best place to start is at about 4:00 am..! That’s what time her feet usually hit the floor…! If it was in the winter time, she would light the heater so Grandpa would have a warm place to get dressed for his day’s work. Then she would have to take care of her personal business. Now the outhouse was about 100 yards from the back door, so again, if it was in the winter, she would have to bundle up for the trip. When she got back, washed up, she would turn on the oven, (They had water and gas piped in because they lived in town), Then she would start the dough for the buttermilk biscuits, putting them in a pan and in the oven they would go. Then she fried up a big platter of salt meat and a big platter of fried eggs. She always had plenty of Jelly and jam with a bowl of home churned butter, that’s where the buttermilk came from for the biscuits.
By this time the coffee was ready and she would wake everyone for breakfast and go back to finish setting the table. If you were too slow getting up, then you didn’t eat until dinner, because when Grandpa was finished eating, she was putting everything up and washing dishes. There was no snacking between meals! In addition to her house work, she took in washing and ironing for a little extra money. After she finished a load of clothes, and that was with an old wringer type washing machine. There were two rinse water tubs that she ran them through, then the wringer again and then hang them on the clothes line….! Now, by this time it’s time to start dinner, same rules apply at the dinner table as at breakfast, when Grandpa is finished, so is everyone else.…! This is where all us kids learned not to lolly gag at the dining table..! It sounds like Grandma was a mean old cuss, not true, it’s just that she had a routine and if it was interrupted it would ruin her entire day! Anyway, after dinner she would get the ironing and folding done. Between the ironing and folding, she would get supper started. At 4:00pm sharp, she would step out on the front porch and blow her police whistle, that would let Grandpa know that it was time to come eat supper…. Same rules apply there too. Now all this is done in winter. During summer, it’s a different story…! In the summer time, she had, what she called a back yard garden, well that back yard garden was more like today’s truck farm…! Between meals and house work she tended to her back yard garden. She also took in some washing and ironing if she had the garden in shape.

That my friends, was a routine day for my Grandma…!!
Nobie Mae Perry
JD

Another Pet Peeve

My pet Peeves
A couple of weeks ago I heard on the news that a city in Ohio was considering abandoning their DUI check points because it didn’t seem to be doing enough good to justify the cost..!!! WELL DUH, I wonder why it doesn’t justify the cost..!!! The News Media gets on the air and reports that the checkpoints will be at such and such intersection at such and such time so be prepared to stop when directed to do so…!! Well… if I wanted to go out drinking with a reduced chance of being caught, all I would need to do is turn on the news and see what route NOT to take…!!

This is just one man’s opinion
What do you think….?
JD

Some of my background-1

I went back to see the old home place year before last and was amazed to see that it was still standing. Although the vegetation was grown up around it, and the front porch was gone. The brick chimney that my Dad built somewhere around 1945 or 1946 was still standing. I was about 4 years old at the time and I guess the reason I remember it so well is because when he hooked the old horse up to the old mud and moss chimney and pulled it down, snakes scattered. There was a nest of them in the base of it. My mother was screaming and my dad and the neighbors were trying to kill them with sticks and shovels, it was a sight to see.

I lived the first 9 years of my life along with 2 brothers and a sister in this old house in Columbia La. in what my older brother dubbed ‘skunk holler’. There were only 2 bedrooms and one of those was the master bedroom/living room combination. They were happy years, I guess because we as kids, had no idea what our mom and dad had to go through just to keep clothes on our backs and food in our bellies. My dad died in this house, in July, 1950. He was 37 years old and died of TB when I was 9 years old. I remember standing on the front porch watching as they carried his body to the hurst, it was raining…...
This old house had no electricity, no indoor plumbing of any kind. For heat, we had a fireplace and one of those old Ben Franklin potbellied heaters. My mother cooked on an old 4 eye wood burning stove with a side oven on it. I can remember my brother and I running along each side of the trail through the woods as my dad would ride on a slide pulled by our horse. We would pick up pine knots and put them on the slide, they would be used in winter to make a hot fire in the fireplace and wood burning heater to heat the house. I could tell you a lot more about life in this old house during those 9 short years and the things I found myself in trouble for..! But I will have to save that for another post…..
Like Meryl Haggard sang,- "No amount of money can buy from me the memories that I have of then, and no amount of money can pay me to go back and live through it again"…!
After my dad died, us kids started spending a lot of time with our grandparents, My grandpa was the blacksmith in Columbia, A.E. Perry, Shop #9, above the door hang a sign that read, ’We can fix anything from a broken heart to the crack of dawn’
Now my grandpa was a shade tree philosopher, He had many words of wisdom that didn’t mean a thing to me until I grew older and started thinking of the things he would say. As I would analyze some of them, they would come clear to me, like the one that struck the hardest in my mind was, “You are the master of your thoughts until they are spoken, then you become their slave”, A profound statement. Another one is, “Time is a long time coming, but a short time gone”. And it only seems like he told me that 15 minutes ago………! He told me once that a tree wasn't half as far up as it was down, and he said, if you don’t believe it, just climb up there and look down..! He was always free with his words of wisdom after he had indulged in a few snorts of his, ‘sweetheart wine’. He loved his sweetheart wine.
One day my Grandmother told me that if I would go out to the shop and round up all his hidden wine bottles with some wine in them, she would give me a dime for each bottle I found with some in it. Well being such an enterprising young man of about 10 years old, I found a bottle that was ¾ full. Then I went out in the field behind the shop and found several empties and poured a little in each one of them and took them to grandma, Yep, you got it, she saw right through it and told me that she would give me the first dime she caught climbing a skinned sapling backwards! Well, I learned my lesson right then and there, I got into trouble with grandpa….!
I’ll have to give you’ll a run-down on Grandma one of these days, and if you’re not 60 years or older, then you probably won’t believe a word of it…!

The Outhouse

OOOOOH that country living, you got’a love it…!

This is our back-up, a fully functional, organic out house..
Complete with pictures, calendar, wash basin/pitcher, magazines, air freshener and a coal oil lamp.
We are contemplating putting in a small wood burning heater for our winter comfort.

You might call it, ‘The ultimate in togetherness’…!

- Inside view-

You know, as I sit here talking about our outhouse, my thoughts wonder back to the one I had to use as a child. Now that one had none of the conveniences that our organic outhouse has! No air freshener, it was one of those that made you wish your neck was long enough to reach the door for fresh air…! I’m sure that there are some folks out there that
know just what I mean, and know

what the Sears Roebuck catalog was for too, not reading, that’s for sure. No wash basin or calendar either. The pages in the new Sears Catalogs are hi-gloss, no help there…!

To be continued……

JD

*****************************

Another Pet Peeve

Another Pet Peeve
It is said that Wal-Mart is the leading employer in the world….. A couple of weeks ago, there was a march on Wal-Mart and the reason was unclear to me because I came in on the last half of the news report, just in time to hear the reporter say that Wal-Mart imports 70% of their stock from China..! My feelings on this are that if Wal-Mart supported AMERICAN workers by buying that 70% of products here at home, and pay their workers a reasonable rate of pay, and furnish them with an insurance plan, just think how much their employees could save, and spend more..! More taxes could be collected, hundreds of thousands people would be back to work making that 70% of products that are being imported…! I also hear that the majority of their employee’s are living at, or below the poverty level. It is also reported that the dwindling number of tax payers of this country are having to help with the cost of health care for these employees..!
It was reported on the news of one of a Columbus Ohio news stations that all the donated toys and gift bins for the needy were empty! People were not able to donate as they use to, and other charity groups around the country were not able to meet their goals this year, Think about it, if Wal-Mart supported the American worker, There would be a lot less needy families, you know the ones, the ones that have to depend on Welfare just to get by, and the one’s that can’t afford to pay their house notes and loose them. I think Ohio is high on the list of home repossessions, wonder why? Also, there would be greater tax revenue to help with supporting school districts to keep schools open instead of closing them or raising taxes on the working people! Wal-Mart is not the only one causing this problem, there are the big corporations moving their companys and jobs out of the U.S.A. and I understand that they are being given tax breaks and incentives to do so and claim that they are doing it to help enhance that country’s economy! That’s BULL CRAP…! It’s for cheap and slave labor…. And they don’t have to worry about taking care of the environment..!

This is just one man’s opinion
What do you think….?
JD

Confession

‘The Confession’

I must confess that when I started this blog, I intended to use it as a release to air all my frustrations in the form of, ‘Pet Peeves’. However I’ve changed my mind, blogging is new to me and as I look around at other people’s blogs, I can see that as a rule, the real intent behind blogging is to enjoy meeting people, sharing a multitude of interests and views. I've found that you can sometimes listen with your eyes, better than with your ears when you read between the lines!

Blogging will jog your memory and as you start thinking back on your past, the memories seem to spread like a spiders web, if you know what I mean. You start remembering parts of your life that you haven’t thought of for years! Some happy times, some not so happy, but hey, they’re memories…!

Anyway, I will be slipping a, ‘Pet Peeve’ in on you from time to time…….. *S*

PS: I do feel that, ‘Under God’, should remain in Our Pledge of Allegiance, AND, ‘In God We Trust’ should remain on our money…!

ALSO, I feel like WE should have the right to display the American Flag anywhere and at anytime you choose…!!

This is just one man’s opinion
What do you think….?

JD

Ringing in '2008'

'Miss Taryn'

I could not have picked a better image

to welcome you to

“THE BIG DAY”
(I have to let you know that Miss Taryn is drinking a 'Non-Alcoholic Grape Juice..!!)

We’ve been looking forward to it all year, or maybe some were dreading it's arrival! Anyway, here it is and I suggest we all make the best of it. I don’t know just how you feel about it, but I think I will do something that will give it some meaning, don’t know yet what that will be, but you can bet I’ll enjoy it whatever it is…!

Well here it is a little after 9:00 am and we are getting snow flurries. We didn't have a white Christmas, but looks like we will have a white New Years Day...!

We really miss our kids, G'Kids and GG'Kids down in SW Louisiana, and in Texas, at 1,100 miles away, its hard to visit as often as we would like. Not to leave out Nick and Angela in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. We won't even guess at the miles on that one, but it is 9 hours time difference.

My posting today is going to be a short one, so Jo and I would like to say,

HAPPY NEW YEAR..!

Also, Jo and I would like to wish Britt a HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY..!!!