Scattelogical ramblings and desultory humor - SB Edition

Our high for the last week was 22 second highest was 17.....30 sounds warm!

No snow, Victor....but very very cold. Oops, we did have snow one night at about 2 a.m., covered everything. it was gone by the time i got up. I don't count that as snow.

You must jump for joy when it passes freezing, Celeste.

I am layered up....always. DH says if I gain weight i'll be warmer. I disagree, if it would just warm up I would be warmer. DUH!!!
It does say it will be 30 sunday, we'll see.

My husband deadheads DLs! x, C

These are all great stories, and I agree that we have to find humor during the difficult times. I think it's a self preservation tactic.

Here's a good one:

Back in the late 50's and early 60's, when women still wore hats, my mom bought this "Easter Bonnett" that looked like a big bucket covered in fake daisies. She wore it to church and after Mass, a good pal of my folks' came up to her and whispered, "Marilynn...that's the stupidest GD hat I've ever seen in my life". (He could talk to her that way because they were all great pals...) My dad had told her the same thing, but she insisted on wearing it, to spite him. She just laughed at this man's remark and said to him, "I'm gonna fix you but good, Aldo".

She mailed him the hat for Christmas. It went back and forth in the mail between them for YEARS...and the hat got more tattered and worse looking with each year. It became a common joke about this stupid hat, and everyone knew the story behind it.

One day, out of the blue, Aldo had a massive heart attack and dropped dead. It was a huge shock to his family and everyone who knew him.

He and his wife were real "pranksters" and very fun people...not stuffy or pretentious in the least.

The morning of the funeral, my mom announced she was going to wear the hat to the funeral. My dad protested and said, "I am NOT walking into that church with you wearing that ridiculous hat. This isn't the time to be funny and it's in poor taste".

Mom said, "Fine. I'll drive myself in MY car. You can sit by yourself, but I'm WEARING the HAT wheather you like it or not. Tina (the wife) needs a jolt of humor and she'll love it. Trust me. I KNOW what I'm doing".

We went on ahead and got seated in the church before mom got there.

For whatever reason, mom was about 8 minutes late getting to the church and the funeral had already started. There she was, sitting way in the back wearing "the hat". My dad just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

5 minutes later, the wife happened to turn her head and looked toward the back of the church. She saw my mom wearing the hat and motioned for the priest to stop for a moment. She got up, walked to the back, and DRAGGED my mom up to the front pew with her. People started applauding.

The service continued and when it was all over, she told my mom, "I could never have gotten through this funeral if you hadn't worn that silly old hat. THANK YOU Dear Friend".

No one knows where the hat disappeared to...

jumping back a few posts, to the discussion of "common names" of plants:
Who knew just how racy Rogers and Hammerstein were in the 1940s. Until i saw it on iTunes, i never realized that in South Pacific, Nellie sings a song called "C**k-Eyed Optimist".

spelling fix.

This message was edited Jan 23, 2008 9:15 PM

ROFL! Love that story, Jasper!

Before my grandfather died he had lost a lot of weight and his false teeth no longer fit. After he died, my Aunt Frances went up to the coffin & slipped his teeth into his jacket pocket.

She said, "I don't want Papa to go to heaven without his teeth."

Nancy

JD, that is a great story. I would have loved it from your Mom's view or from the wife's. I wish we could all have enough insight and compassion to do things like that.

Great one, JD. Your parents were fantastic people and I'm so glad you tell the family tales so well.

Great story, Mike. Funny, Nancy!

gabagoo. Your story reminded me of one of the recent episodes of Twilight Zone re-runs. I don't remember having seen this one before.

It was about a Southern man waiting to get into heaven and he had his coon dog with him. A man came up and said you can't bring that dog in here. Dog's have their own cemetery up the road there.

So the man said, If Jeb can't get in there, its no place I want to be. So he sat down with Jeb beside the road. (There happened to be a bench there to sit on).

So then another man came along, and said sorry you had to wait, come along now its time to go on to Heaven. The 1st man said, I don't want to go if Ol Jeb can't come along. The 2nd man said, Oh. that place there is not really heaven, its some place else. Of course dogs can come on to heaven, its just up the road here.

I can see a man would not feel right in heaven without his teeth, or without his coon dog either.

i saw that a while back - loved it! it was like a test of character - anyone who'd leave their dog behind was not headed for heaven!

I saw that episode! I have it on tape, he passed away going after his dog which went into the water when they were 'Coon huntin'. It was on one of the holiday marathons. I'm going to transfer it to DVD. ☺

Reminds me of the pyramids, and the practices of the Egyptians to bury the living servants with the deceased Pharoah, along with his beloved pets and food enough to last awhile.

No extra air, though.

So I guess my wife is taking me then.

In one of our excavations there was a chieftan burial with 2 human retainers buried along with him.

Be careful, she might be happy to just leave you here. There could be other servants and pets out there, you know.

V...I think she'll opt for taking the cat, instead.

sort of like the ruins of Pompeii after they were excavated, gloria?

The cat follow me.

This was a burial area for nobility. The two guys were just in there with the chief. One of them had an arrow head in his chest.

We also had mass burials at this site. These people were called "Mississipians" possibly ancestral to the Choctaw Indians. They had scaffold burials where dead people were hung out on trees to deflesh. Then the bones were collected by an official called "the bone picker" finally they were buried all jumbled up in a pile - several individuals at once.

We also found a bison burial at this site. Pretty far south for a bison. Don't know what he was doing there. But maybe that's why he was given a special burial.

Imagine what a polar bear would have received!

Wow... that's really fascinating stuff! You're lucky to be able to see all that! ☺

Now as I clean the sprite off the screen from Victor's comment......


gloria, have you had the opportunity to study many burial sites in your excavations?

This message was edited Jan 23, 2008 9:08 PM

Didn't mean to take away from Gloria's post. I find archeology incredibly interesting.

The fun part is when you get all of the data for each level and try to figure out what was happening. Some sites do cover maybe a thousand years of history. What you do find out is that there are a whole lot more dead people than there are people who are living. And each one lived out a life time just like the ones we are living now.

I too find archeology fascinating. I could listen for hours to Gloria's stories of sites she was involved in.

Only much shorter lives, usually. Just think about how many bodies per square meter of ground through history in Europe or the middle east.

One of the fascinating areas is the whole field of early American remains that are NOT genetically linked to the native Americans.

Yep. Sharran. Lots of burial sites. In fact my area of expertise is supposed to be a group of burial sites on the Tennessee River dating between 500 B.C. to 500 A.D. And my claim to fame was suggesting that these burial sites were the cemeteries of the people who lived there at the same time. In the old days it was "fashionable" to just describe what you saw empirically and any relationship between sites was "conjecture".

It seemed logical to me that these were just different kinds of sites used by the same people. Some were used for living. And some we used as cemeteries for the relatives and ancestors.

Victor: Are you talking about "paleoindians"?

The native americans were relative new comers and also most of them are not historically located where they were prehistorically.

Great info. Gloria...keep going !

Yep, I am waiting, too.

No I'm talking about remains that are closer to Europeans. There was a major find in WA state a few years ago. Also, evidence that Celts may have been on the east coast. Lots of other stuff I can't remember now. Time to go to sleep!

I agree. I don't know much about the genetic studies. That came along later. And I only worked in the Southeast, although I went to school in California. (And also the University of Kentucky).

Cool stuff Gloria! Thanks!! ☺

Gloria125, Is Berry Fell a dirty word these day? Patti

I don't know. It might be. What is Berry Fell???

I guess it should be "Who is Berry Fell".

European contact information and evidence is being discussed in the crib notes for this archaeology course:
http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/naa/naa_web/mod16.html

Not within my area of expertise.

This message was edited Jan 23, 2008 10:02 PM

Controversial book that come out in the 80's, " America B.C:Ancient Settlers in the New World " mostly not found to be credible, but a very interesting read. I love people who question, even when they are off base, if it gets the juices flowing. He talks about a lot of fascinating sites in N.A. He was at Harvard, but this was not really in his field which was biology, I think. Long time ago. Patti

This message was edited Jan 23, 2008 11:19 PM