103 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-20-18”

  4. I’m still coughing up stuff and feeling drained, and it has been a week and a half since my symptoms started. Yesterday evening, a friend from church dropped off some homemade soup for me. It is nice to be cared for.

    Another classical music mashup for your listening enjoyment:

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. In answer to the question yesterday about who Jane Fonda is, she is an actress. Her father was Henry Fonda, known for roles in such classic films as My Darling Clementine, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Oxbow Incident. Jane Fonda was best known in the 1960s and 70s, which was a generally a forgettable era of American film making, so even though she was an award winning actress, it is hard to remember any of her work.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Jane Fonda is most remembered for her stint in Vietnam. That won’t be true when my generation dies off, but not sure how much she will be remembered then anyway. I better go read what was already said about her, I guess.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. Foster care: it is sad and it is challenging. A woman in our church got signed in and is still waiting for her first placement. It may or may not happen but she is willing. I hope her eyes are open.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. I just did 10 minutes of a 20 minute beginner Zumba on youtube. I think I’m going to pass out! But the exercise is much needed after a year of cancer, death, broken foot, back injury and other assorted issues that come with life. 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  12. Mumsee, I got approved for a placement after hearing so much about how foster parents are desperately, desperately needed. I hesitated because I strongly believe children should be in homes with a mother and a father. I finally went ahead for several reasons:

    (1) I could offer a home with a solid Christian who worked from home, with lots of experience with children, and that would be a whole lot better than what many of these children already had. Most of them were coming from single-parent homes, and many two-parent homes didn’t have involved fathers, or had two working parents, or the parents weren’t Christians.

    (2) Many, many children in foster care have been molested. I thought that for a girl or two who were afraid of men, a home with just a mom, but with connection with caring, involved men at church, might be just what was needed for a period.

    (3) The great need was really being emphasized. Wouldn’t it be better for children to live with me than whatever might be the alternative if there were no foster homes available?

    I don’t even remember how long it was till my first placement. I do remember I was surprised that I didn’t get children almost immediately, after hearing how great the need was. About a year into waiting I attended a seminar for foster parents, with dozens or hundreds of us there and multiple options for which session to attend. I ran into one couple who had been in training with me, newlyweds at the time, who had been hurried through the training because a sibling group of four boys was waiting for them. At the time of the seminar, they had adopted the four boys and were now fostering one or two other children–while I awaited my first placement. (I was only eligible for two children, since I only had one bedroom that could be used for children, and I was limiting placements to school-age girls, not pre-schoolers or teens or boys.)

    One session, as I recall, was a Q and A session for those of us still waiting for our first placement. I attended, and before long the frustration of many in the room was palpable. People spoke of having been approved for three years and still awaiting a first placement, or being approved for four years and having had one two-day placement, or being pushed to take children with really serious needs they couldn’t handle. And I recall sitting there as it was admitted out loud that agencies recruit more foster parents than they actually need, because most foster parents consent only to take school-age children (my own stipulation, based on my being a single woman who had to be able to work while the kids were in school and who could not meet the needs of a teenager without a husband present); they admitted that “the system” saw that what was really most necessary was parents willing to take on teenagers, so they hoped some of us would give up on our original limits and expand to take teenagers.

    I stayed in the system another couple of years, and did respite care twice, and finally I had two little girls for two weeks (it was expected to be two or three months) and then later the same little girls for a month (it was expected, that time, to be the entire school year).

    I am very glad I was able to love those girls while they needed me. But eventually I simply could not do it. First of all, foster care cost me thousands of dollars (including purchases, requirements, and kicking out a paying boarder to free the bedroom to take in children) and I was not earning enough to allow me the luxury of keeping open a bedroom that was not needed. It also became clear I was not actually needed, nullifying my whole point of “well, I was a single woman but if foster parents were needed that badly, then I had something to offer even as a single woman.” The requirements were also fairly stringent, requiring quite a few hours of tedious and often silly training per year just to stay in the system. (An annual three-hour class on “giving medication” was a new legal requirement, and a ridiculous one. It taught nothing that wasn’t common sense–“read the label; make sure you give the dosage for the age of the child; don’t give prescription medicine that wasn’t prescribed for that child . . .”) If I were taking a child with juvenile diabetes or some other medical issue, then training would be necessary. But several hours of “training” for something every responsible adult should be able to do was insulting and time-wasting. To have to do it year after year, even when I didn’t have children, was pointless. Finally, when I found out that I was not allowed to hold a child on my lap and hold her arm because she had used that arm to scratch or punch or hit, I decided I simply could not do it anymore, and once my children went home I let my license lapse by not attending further training.

    Once I was asked about taking in sisters, two and three. I said no, I worked from home and needed those hours that kids were in school because I needed the income. I was told I could put the kids in daycare, that the agency would pay for that. Had I thought about it, I might have said if they could pay ME the money they were willing to pay day care, that would free me to take care of the children without need for much editing income and I could take them. But no way was I willing to take toddlers into a strange living situation, with a single mom, and put them in day care. I wouldn’t put any child in my home in day care, even “just” foster children, so I said no.

    Like

    Reply

  13. My point in telling of Jane Fonda being 80 is multi faceted. She was roughly my dad’s age. A year or two older. He never could speak of her without calling her “That Commie %^&*(“. He didn’t really care for my beloved Johnny Cash either because of his stance on Vietnam. I supposed there are worse ways for a daughter to rebel than listening to Johnny Cash. LOL
    Fonda is still very active and hardly looks 80. Yesterday, Hubs and I were taking down signs, returning signs, picking up my Christmas tree that I loaned the office. Hubs listens to talk radio, Lily Tomlinson and Jane Fonda were being interviewed about their Netflix show. (I don’t think I would recommend it).
    What impressed me most is the interviewer kept trying to get her to say something negative, either about how she was raised, how she was treated, whether or not she was sexually harassed as a young woman. She answered ever question by spinning it to a positive. Did you have a horrible childhood? Were you ignored by your father? —I had the childhood most in my generation had. We were all ignored by our fathers. Mine was in WWII.
    She talked about being married to Ted Turner. She helped heal his relationship with his children. She said she had had enough stepmothers to know how to be a good one.

    It was just different for me to listen to who she says she is today. I don’t fault my father’s venomous dislike of her for her stance on Vietnam, nor to I fault her stance on Vietnam. I have the luxury of only being aware that one of my uncles was “away” and seeing my mother cry every time grades came out at the local University where she worked. Those who were failing were turned in to the draft board. I have heard there was a protest on campus and my mother and another woman went and put the flag back up after it had been torn down.
    Vietnam was probably a war we should never have entered, but we did, and those who went deserve our respect. Ultimately for that you can blame John F. Kennedy. Of course Johnson took the fall on it.
    I suppose these things make me think more because I have my own Marine now.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. What was the film she did with her dad late in life, about the lake? She was good in that. She spoke at our university, I remember covering it for the student newspaper (this would have been in the mid 1970s, the height of her political activity).

    Well, I don’t seem to have the flu, thankfully, though I do still feel weary. I’m wondering if it’s stress with what’s coming down at work, my (probably) impending layoff, the prospect of good people being gone. 😦 There were numerous closed-door phone conversations involving editors yesterday, so the scrambling has begun to figure out a way we can even survive another big cut. Layoffs will begin next Friday with photo/features/sports and then move on to our department, news, sometime in February.

    I watched “The Shack” last night — I’d not read the book nor seen the movie, but have heard much about it in the past years since it was released and became so controversial. Yep, pretty heretical. But very emotional in parts as well and especially as I was feeling so low and wiped out last night.

    I went to bed early, was up reading for a couple hours from 1 to 3 a.m. or so, then slept until 7:30. I still feel tired but have no other symptoms of being sick, so I may just be plain “run down.” Is that a real condition?

    Getting my hair cut at 11:30 in between housework and hopefully a dog park break. It’s very windy and cool here this morning, but no more fog or clouds, just trees waving in the breeze and a house that feels way too cold.

    Like

    Reply

  17. A hair cut always makes me feel better. Stress is very real and can make you feel ill. Take some B vitamins. I also recommend Inositol. It will either work or it won’t but if it does it helps with stress and anxiety. It works for me and gives me vivid dreams.
    If you are laid off will there be any severance pay? Have you thought about other things you could do? Could you freelance articles?

    Like

    Reply

  18. I’ll try to find Inositol, never heard of it. But I have been taking an extra “B” over the past few mornings.

    Yes, 3 months’ severance (which is exceedingly generous considering the folks who own us) and yes, I would plan to do freelance. I have enough local contacts, from the port to the chamber and other groups — along with a weekly magazine whose editor has always told me he’d love to hire me away from but couldn’t afford it — that I think I could manage getting enough supplemental income that I’d be OK. All piecemeal stuff but that’s all I’d be looking for moving forward I think.

    In many ways I look forward to the time, soon or not, when I’m out of this treadmill of 40 hours a week in a dying industry filled with stress. I’d especially look forward to being able to go to the women’s Bible studies from church (usually weekday affairs) and perhaps sign up again for BSF. But it will be a transition. Still, one I’m sure I’ll be able to navigate, though not without a few bumps and emotion.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  20. I’ve heard that that famous photo of Jane Fonda sitting on the anti-aircraft gun (of the Viet Cong) was not what it seemed. Many, even today, believe she did it deliberately, but she says she was sort of maneuvered to sit down there, and didn’t really realize the repercussions of what she was doing. Of course, that could be her re-writing her history. (I believe she has apologized for her words and actions during that time, but many refuse to forgive her.)

    Like

    Reply

  22. Speaking of her dad, Henry Fonda – He is one of my favorite of the old Hollywood actors. Our local PBS channel played 12 Angry Men recently, and I recorded it. I started watching some of it yesterday, and plan to finish it tomorrow after church. Great movie. (I’ve seen it before.)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  23. Yes, she has since apologized but the photo probably remains one of the most iconic ones of her. It went viral before there was such a thing.

    She somewhat rehabilitated herself in the 1980s with her exercise tapes. But many could never forget what they saw as an act of treason that damaged our troops. I wonder how often she’s relived those “tank” moments which became so symbolic of her. She probably didn’t foresee the damaging ripple effect that incident would have for the rest of her life (though she was old enough at the time, maybe 30?, that she should have been wiser).

    She married political radical Tom Hayden not too many years later and of course he was a prominent player in California politics through the later 1970s and probably the ’80s and ’90s? Can’t remember how long he was in office. I think he sponsored some dog/animal protection legislation toward the latter part of his career.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  25. Kare I have been taking a Zumba class once a week…45 minute class and that 20 year old instructor must be the child of the Engergizer Bunny…sometimes I just stop and stare at her (while catching my breath!) Since it is only once a week I have decided I must go…I have been walking 3-5 miles a day and on Zumba day…I take off on the walking schedule!!
    Jane Fonda does look great…she once said of her plastic surgery that she has bought herself another ten years….so I guess 80 is the new 70!!
    Kim what you said about your Mom made me smile…with a tear. 💕

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  26. Donna @ 12:19 said that nobody looks their age in Hollywood.
    Have you considered the women on Fox News?.
    It looks like they raided a college sorority to find them.
    Some are near fifty.
    Amazing what the Green Room can do.
    Might even make me look like Burt Lancaster.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  27. I liked On Golden Pond, with Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, and Dabney Coleman as her boyfriend if I remember right. But I would never admit to my dad that I had seen it. His attitude toward Jane Fonda was like Kim’s dad’s.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  28. I have never seen the ‘famous’ photo of Jane Fonda – never even heard of it before today. K is right that the memory of Fonda’s Vietnam antics will die out with the generation that witnessed them. My parents were the young generation during that protest era, but anytime I ask them about things like JFK’s assassination or the civil rights movement, they have very little to relate. Television was never a very big part of my mother’s life and lived her life very much in her surroundings. My father was typical of his generation, a hard drinker who did drag racing for thrills and took road trips just to see what he could of the world. The events that he recalls are more what interested him, like the first rocket to the moon, which he climbed the Toronto Exhibition arch to see better, and Canada’s own political drama of the era, the 1970 October Crisis: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/october-crisis/. Vietnam figures very little in their memories, and while they can recall hearing news of events, those events seem far removed in their minds from their own lives.

    I can understand their vagueness somewhat – who ever thinks when they hear about an event that one day they will be relating their memories of it to those who were not born when it happened. One of the things that we discussed as my young relatives and I put that puzzle of Manhatten together was Sept. 11, 2001, since none of my nieces or nephews were alive at that time – I realized the truth of what my professor of Middle Eastern History said to the class when he spoke of the same event. He paused, looked around at the young faces in the room, and said, “You are all so young!” It was a bit of a shock to realize that I, of all the students in the classroom – with the exception of an older man who was auditing the class – was the only one who remembered things that were discussed in the class like Camp David II and the First Gulf War. Most of the students would have barely remembered the Second Gulf War. How quickly the events of the present become lessons of the past. Truly, we spend our lives as a tale that is told.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  31. Interesting to note that actors could be as politically charged in that era as they are now. I was also thinking that the 1970 October Crisis was the kind of scenario that was repeated again and again in the West during that era – e.g. Munich (1972), Bloody Sunday (1972), the kidnapping of Patty Hearst (1974), other kidnappings, plane and train hijackings, and of course the civil rights marches and protest movements. There was so much unrest. There is nothing new under the sun says the Preacher, and also, “Do not think to inquire what is the reason that the former days were better than these, for you do not inquire wisely concerning this.”

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  32. I supported the Viet Nam war while it was on. But I was wrong. I wouldn’t have demonstrated as others did. But Kennedy and, especially, Johnson should never have involved us. The Viet Cong didn’t want to make the world communist, they wanted the French and Americans out of Viet Nam.
    I told you this before: The turning point for me was after the war. I attended the Naval War College in 1978-79. Lots of Viet Nam veterans were there. I asked them” How do you know when you won? They had no answer.
    It’s the same problem the British had. They won most of the battles in the Revolution and 1812. But they lost the wars.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  33. I watched Twelve Angry Men while flying over the Atlantic on my way to West Africa. My father once got out On Golden Pond from the library because he knew it was supposed to be a classic, but he didn’t seem to enjoy it very much, so none of the rest of us bothered watched it. I find most of the films from that era to be more instructive about worldview than entertainment. There was a peculiar look to films of the era that now film makers, when making a film about the 1970s, will imitate, as if the colour was washed and faded out of the film. The appearance of the films match the storylines which are bitter, often blasphemous (it was as if a dam broke and all the profanity and swearing that was kept out of films in previous eras flooded the scripts), and bleak.

    Like

    Reply

  34. I remember knowing about the Vietnam War but I was pretty young (I was 13 when it ended), and I don’t remember knowing a thing about Jane Fonda until I was in college or maybe later. I went to see On Golden Pond with my parents – one of only two movies I remember going to all together (the other was The Hiding Place) – and I really liked it. (Those were also the first movies I’d seen in a theater since I became a Christian at a church that taught we shouldn’t go to movie theaters – though showing Christian movies at the church was OK; they confirmed the opinion I’d been developing for a while that such teaching was misguided and it would be better to help people discern which movies were worth going to.)

    I remember seeing a magazine cover about My Lai, and knowing about the draft and wondering if it would be extended to girls if the ERA was ratified, and would the war still be going on when I turned 18. I know that by the time I was an adult my impressions of U.S. involvement were generally negative, and it came as something of a surprise, when I met and married my husband, to hear a very different view. His father had been in the Air Force and flew I forget how many combat missions in Vietnam, and as I remember he felt it had been a mistake to pull out as we did, that we could and should have gone on to win, which he said we certainly had the military capability to do, just not the political will.

    Like

    Reply

  36. Interesting article Mumsee.
    It appears that she had a real conversion experience.
    Bill Moyers is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Seminary. I had classes with him, but didn’t know him.
    I once heard him, on NPR question his own faith.
    I don’t know the significance of that.

    Like

    Reply

  37. Thanks for posting, mumsee. I cringed when she began getting so much public attention within the church during the time she announced she was a Christian, we just need to let people be out of the public eye during those times.

    And in the link roscuro can see “the picture.” 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  38. I skimmed but did not read the article. I did catch the part about the writer asking folk to pray for her. As a fellow believer in the spotlight, prayers are important and we should remember that for all our favorite actors and athletes who we know are brothers and sisters. May God be glorified.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  40. Roscuro – You weren’t lumping 12 Angry Men (1957) in with the movies of the 70s, were you? I don’t think that was your intent, but your comment about the other movies comes in the same paragraph.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  44. Ah, interesting, it was originally teleplay (1954):

    Twelve Angry Men is a 1954 teleplay by Reginald Rose for the Studio One anthology television series. Initially staged as a CBS live production on September 20, 1954, the drama was later rewritten for the stage in 1955 under the same title and again for a feature film, 12 Angry Men (1957). The episode garnered three Emmy Awards for writer Rose, director Franklin Schaffner and Robert Cummings as Best Actor.[1][2

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  46. missing church this morning as I take care of my back. I cannot imagine getting into my low, low car, so it may be a long slow walk to school tomorrow. Lots of advil for the inflammation. I should not have lifted a trunk, or even slid it

    Like

    Reply

  47. No, Kizzie, I wasn’t. I didn’t think it was likely anyone would confuse the era of 12 Angry Men. It is one of those edgy dramas that they did in the 1950s – other examples that come to mind are On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire. The black-and-white look of the dramas was in stark contrast to the brilliant Technicolor of the Biblical epics, Westerns, and musicals that were also popular in that decade.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  48. I’m with you, Jo!

    I, too, was sent to interview Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in the 1970s while in college. I ran into a lot of problems however, when they only wanted to call on their prefered stooges in the front row. I wrote a pretty negative article for the Daily Bruin, but the ran it.

    I agree, when a famous person becomes a Christian give them the space they need to grow. Bob Dylan remained silent for a year after his conversion and was mentored and taught well. Later, he seemed to change his mind, but . . . who knows for sure. I’m impressed Fonda still studies the Bible on her own and pray that her heart would be open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the truth.

    Off to dinner. Our guests leave tomorrow; today’s seminar was good.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  49. When I spoke of the films of the 1970s, I was thinking of the era defining films such as A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Taxi Driver, The Godfather Parts I & II, The Deer Hunter, The Sting, American Graffiti, All the President’s Men, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer, etc. I’ve actually only seen two of those listed from start to finish, and I wouldn’t watch them again due to content reasons. The others I’ve seen multiple clips of and/or read multiple cultural references to, so I know quite a bit about their content. The Star Wars films are about the only famous film I can think of from the era that is actually somewhat family friendly. Well, I suppose I could count Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, though Gene Wilder is decidedly weird in that film, and Fiddler on the Roof, though it was released in 1970 and really belongs to the earlier era of popular musicals.

    Like

    Reply

  50. Looked at the ‘picture’ of Jane Fonda, and definitely never seen it before. I’m not comfortable with what she said about her faith, describing Christ as the incarnation of the divine wisdom. Very Gnostic sounding stuff, and it renders Jesus Christ as a passive force for a nebulous good, rather than the flesh and blood Incarnation of God the Son. About Bob Dylan, he is about as far off the rails as one gets and seems to regard his conversion experience as simply another phase of his long and chequered career. Johnny Cash is about the only celebrity conversion I know of from that era which actually bore some good fruit.

    For you see your calling, brothers, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God has chosen the foolish thing of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: that no flesh might glory in his presence. [I Corinthians 1:26-29]

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  51. But give them space, pray for good mentors and teachers .

    All the president’s men didn’t seem to fit into that grouping.

    We were funnily bundled up at
    the dog park tonight, in the 50s and very windy, as a huge cruise ship blasted its horn and cruised out of the port. I have the fireplace going tonight and Annie is camped out on top of the kitchen heater vent, enjoying the warm air blowing into her tummy fur

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  52. Sixteen year old daughter has mastered the fine art of passing gas loudly and belching and blowing her nose on her hand and licking it up. She is so lady like. That is one of her ambitions, to be a lady. She used to be one.

    Like

    Reply

  54. I don’t recall gratuitous use of bad language in that film.

    I do remember seeing Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ with a date and literally squirming in my seat at all the ‘F’ word usage
    in what otherwise was probably a decently made film. Afterward date says ‘did the language bother you?’

    Uh, yeah.

    Like

    Reply

  58. could count Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, though Gene Wilder is decidedly weird in that film,

    1- Gene Wilder was weird in any film, it was part of his acting. 2- Willy Wonka was a weird character. I haven’t seen the Johnny Depp version, but I can only imagine he was weird as Willy Wonka, too. Some day maybe I’ll read the book, but from what I have heard it may be weirder than any film based on it so far.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  59. Peter, I’ve seen the Johnny Depp version. You guessed it, he was weird. But neither Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp actually played the character in the book. Long before I saw either film, we listened, many times, to the audio book version read by the author, Roald Dahl, and we loved it – James and the Giant Peach and Fantastic Mr. Fox were also beloved audio tales of my childhood. I watched the film version of James and the Giant Peach and was sorely disappointed; I’ve never been able to bring myself to see the Fantastic Mr. Fox film, as the trailer alone had definite elements that were nowhere in the book. I have also read the books for myself. The only filmmaker who came close to capturing something of the peculiar wonder and humour of Dahl’s books was Spielberg’s The BFG, and even then, not all the notes were hit properly. Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka is something of an irreverent intellectual who actively seeks to prove the world is mad, Johnny Depp’s version is a hippy who never quite grew up, but neither of their characters seem to care about others, taking a somewhat malicious delight in letting the bad children get their comeuppances, and are not even truly interested in Charlie. The Willy Wonka of the book is full of strange fancies and odd humours, but he is more of an absented minded professor, whose absorbed interest in his work gets in the way of a timely response to the bad children’s antics, although he is genuinely delighted with Charlie in the end.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  60. Perhaps the real reason no filmmaker has ever managed to interpret Dahl’s work is because of the cultural disconnect. Dahl was British to the core – the film depiction of Fantastic Mr. Fox in an American setting was the first flaw I noticed in the trailer, as the entire story is based on the cultural perceptions of British farmers towards the wild animals that invade their farms – laboriously digging out fox dens and badger setts is a peculiarly British farming activity. That British humour is something that is a part of my culture on my mother’s side, as my grandmother was born in England – her family’s sense of humour was so distinctive that a deliberately bad pun is identified throughout the extended family as a [Surname]’s joke. So, it is no surprise that all that side of the family love Dahl’s books – one of my favorite family gathering memories is of a number of us gathered around, splitting our sides at an uncle’s comical reading of Dahl’sThe Twits, which is a book not to everyone’s taste. There is something of a dark self mockery in British humour; and be it Dahl or Dickens that is being interpreted, American fimmakers, whose humour G.K. Chesterton once described as consisting in heaping one wildly exaggerated situation upon another (in his era, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were doing exactly that), just can’t get that British comic accent right.

    Like

    Reply

  61. Wasn’t Jane Fonda’s conversion what brought her marriage to Ted Turner to an end?

    Raging Bull was the movie with the “F” word in it so many times. I was so embarrassed, watching it with my dad. He loved boxing.

    Like

    Reply

  62. Roscuro – I get most British humor. My newest son-in-law has a British mother, so he gets it too. Our conversations occasional get the rest of the family scratching their heads.

    I guess I heard wrong on the Willy Wonka book. Now I’ll have to read it for myself.

    Like

    Reply

  63. I think Dahl’s writing is all uncomfortable with sardonic and curious twists. I didn’t read any of them to my children. Wilder’s version of Chocolate Factor was so odd, I figured Depp’s would be worse and didn’t bother.

    Like

    Reply

  64. It is snowing!! They are scaling back on the predicted amount…they had it up to 7 inches…now they are sticking with 3-4. It is a light fluffy snow so not certain an upside down snowman will be created with this one ⛄️
    I’ve been reading the comments about Willy Wonka….we absolutely love that movie and found Gene Wilder’s performance brilliant! The version with Johnny Depp is very dark and not enjoyable to watch for us…but more following the storyline of the book….

    Like

    Reply

  65. I missed the entire Willy Wonka era, never read the book, never saw either of the movies.

    Wonder if we’ll start the 10 Commandments sermon series today or if we’ll have an intermission between Romans and that.

    Off to find out … But first, I have to get those dogs fed. Annie woke me up this morning. When she batted at my head, off the bed she flew 🙂 But cats always land on their feet are never that easily deterred, so she bounced back up soon enough and won the battle. Ok, Ok. Up I got.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  66. .Phos said, (11;20) “Johnny Cash is about the only celebrity conversion I know of from that era which actually bore some good fruit.”

    Following is a comment, as I remember it, that (the late) Jerry Gray once said before playing a gospel song by Connie Smith.
    “Connie smith had a troubled life. Married three times, an attempted suicide, was cancelled by Rev. Jimmy Snow, Hank’s son who ministered to the Opry personnel. She accepted Christ, changed her life and includes a gospel song on every album”

    Connie Smith is now married to Marty Stuart and appears on his program each Saturday.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  67. Several stars of country music were committed Christians. Immediately coming to mind are Hank Snow, Roy Rogers and Roy Acuff. The song “Great Speckled Bird” is about a Christian denimination, the Church of God. You will see that if you notice the words carefully.
    ”All the other birds gather around her, watch every move that she makes, they long to find fault with her theaching, but really find no mistake”.
    2.

    Like

    Reply

  68. Well, Chas, I made the caveat that it was of the ones I knew of. I’m not sure that I’ve heard the name of Connie Smith before.

    NancyJill, My aunt and uncle (whose story I’ve told on here) both loved the Gene Wilder version and it was their copy of the film that I watched. There is a certain charm in Wilder’s performance – of the two, I prefer Wilder’s over Depp’s interpretation of Willy Wonka – but for me, having grown up with only the book and the audio recording, the film performance was not what I envisioned from the words of the book.

    Michelle, yes, that is how Dahl strikes a lot of people. Everyone has their own brand of humour, but for my mother’s family, who tend to be introverted and reticent with outsiders (the British stiff upper lip is still part of their DNA), Dahl is something of a litmus test to find out if other people will understand their sense of humour. One of my cousins said that she knew she could marry her future husband when she discovered that he liked The Twits – since The Twits is about an awful couple who constantly play horrid pranks on one another, having a future marriage partner be able to take the book as a good joke is actually an indication that you will be able laugh together even through the difficult times.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  72. I am still just dragging, I made it to church (and we did launch the 10 Commandment sermon series today) but this afternoon I think will be spent napping or reading in bed.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  75. I made it to church, only because I wanted to very much. Because of weather issues, I had only been once in the past three weeks. Or maybe I was sick three weeks ago, I don’t really remember, but last week we had ice. Well . . . this week we had fog. Very dense fog, and I came very close to finding the nearest place it was safe enough to turn around and doing so. But, first, I turned on the windshield wiper, and that immediately doubled my visibility. Even with that, I had to consider for a few seconds whether to keep going or go back. But I kept going, a few miles an hour slower than usual and with a strong awareness that deer might come out of nowhere though cars probably would not.

    I did have a pickup turn onto the road ahead of me, not cutting me off but entering the roadway slowly enough that I slowed down a bit, and then becoming the vehicle I followed for several miles. And it was black and never did turn on its headlights, so it was just a dark shape ahead of me a ways. Foolish driver.

    Fortunately in the city the fog was much less dense, though they still had it. It’s still dense out here.

    Like

    Reply

  77. So sad to think I wouldn’t fit into Roscuro’s family!

    I am feeling better today. One of the elders sat behind me, noticed there was a problem and prayed for me through the whole service.

    Sorry I can’t mail him to you, Jo!

    Lovely houseguests (the speaker and his wife) have gone and now we’re having a quiet and slow day, thanks be to God.

    Well, sort of. I’m preparing to launch John Stott’s Sermon on the Mount Lifeguide study on Tuesday.

    Mr. Energy took a walk and is relaxing. He’ll be in China next Sunday.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  82. Michelle, we can make allowances 😉 Besides, as my Eldest Sibling in law could tell you, one can be trained to appreciate our brand of humour. When he first began to hang out with our family while courting my Eldest Sibling, our deliberate use of bad puns pained him somewhat, but now he can hold his own in a run of puns. Sometimes, when I read the comments on an article in The Guardian, a British based publication, I will find a whole comment thread in which the commenters have vied with each other in contributing a pun upon the topic, and that is exactly what my family does. Someone might ask to pass the gravy during the turkey dinner at Christmas, and someone else will quote Scrooge’s “there’s more gravy than grave about you”, another person might suggest that it was a ‘grave’ situation, a third might suggest that the topic was being ‘beaten to death’, and so it goes. If you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join in.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  83. I’ve never heard that Acuff song before; and I thought I had heard all of Acufff’ songs. Like Hank Snow, I’ve heard all of them. .
    If you go to the end you get to hear 13 minutes of JohnnyC ash.

    Like

    Reply

  88. The next generation of our family seems poised to carry on the tradition. I was reading nursery rhymes to Tiny Niece, and when an adult starts reading to a child during a family gathering, I generally find the other children gather round to listen, whether or not they are ‘too old’ for the book. I came to the old rhyme ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock, the mouse ran up the clock..’ and Eldest Nephew who was listening in, broke in with a pun upon the rhyme that he had picked up from a book somewhere:

    Hickory, dickory, dock,
    Twelve mice ran up the clock.
    The clock struck one…
    And the rest got away with minor injuries.

    It was so delightful, as he was always very literal as a child and very slow to understand when people were joking. He is growing into his sense of humour.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  90. When I was getting ready to leave Phoenix to go to college, Mom took me out to lunch. I don’t remember what restaurant we ate at, just that it had a plaque on the wall saying “Occupancy: 144 persons.”

    “How gross” I said to Mom.

    “I’m going to miss you” she said to me.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  91. I slept for more than 2 hours this afternoon, woke up barely in time to get to the dog park. I think it’s that low-stress supplement Kim recommended to me. Maybe that’s best only at night 🙂 I’ll just have deal with the stress during the daytime.

    I think the government shutdown is over. I don’t know if that’s good or bad news. Good I suppose. But seemed like CNN was doing live breaking news about it when I switched over there a few minutes ago, hoping to see one of their 1980s retrospective programs (this one on the switch over from vinyl to CDs and the rise of music video).

    Like

    Reply

  92. My sister’s second child, a boy, is the family clown. My husband and I went to visit the family when this nephew was about 11, and one dinnertime we sat around, all telling our favorite true-life funny stories.

    My sister sent this son down to the basement to get something. Desperately afraid he would miss something by leaving the table, as he got to the top of the stairs to descend, he looked at us plaintively and said, “Don’t tell any more till I get back!”

    My husband waited till he was all the way at the bottom then gestured for all of us to lean in close. “When he is coming up the stairs, I am going to talk as though I am finishing a joke, and on my gesture, everyone needs to laugh as though it’s the funniest one you’ve heard yet.”

    Two or three minutes later, we heard his feet on the stairs, and my husband said a few irrelevant words, like “And the dog sat down and the man laughed.” And he gestured with his hand and all of us began laughing. Soon my nephew was running up the stairs, and at the sight of his sad “what did I miss?” face at the top, we all laughed harder. Initially it was fake laughter, but it was genuine and loud when we saw his reaction.

    My sister thought my husband let her son off the hook too easily, though, admitting the joke too soon.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  93. Second nephew is the family clown. He started teasing us when he was able to speak in full sentences, although I’m not sure which was funnier, Second nephew’s deliberate jokes or Eldest nephew’s dead serious literal statements.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  96. Pauline, 3:32pm yesterday, The Hiding Place was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. My most vivid memory of that day, though, was the horrible taste I had in my mouth throughout the whole movie from eating what must have been some spoiled nuts we had at home before going to the theater. Did I not brush my teeth before going? LOL. Kids.

    Like

    Reply

  98. Roscuro, 7:40pm yesterday:

    A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Taxi Driver, The Godfather Parts I & II, The Deer Hunter, The Sting, American Graffiti, All the President’s Men, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer…

    I don’t go to movies (or watch them at home, either) much anymore, but several from that list above were ones I saw back in the day: American Graffiti, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer.

    With one of the families I frequently babysat for as a teen, I remember the parents going to the movie The Deer Hunter one night I babysat their kids. After the parents got home, the mom reported that the movie was way too violent for her tastes. I don’t know what the movie is about, but that deterred me from ever wanting to see it.

    My parents saw The Godfather (I don’t remember if it was only the first part, or more), but Mom reported that was violent, too.

    We had two LPs with 70s movie hits — one was called “Flick Themes,” and the other I don’t remember. The songs weren’t sung by the original artists. For example, “The Way We Were” had someone other than Barbra Streisand.

    Some of those movies on your list were on those records — A Clockwork Orange, Theme from The Godfather, The Entertainer from The Sting, Fiddler on the Roof.

    Your post brought back a lot of memories.

    Like

    Reply

  99. Hubby and I have been known to have some good back-and-forths going on occasion. We were in the car one time, he was driving, and somehow, I think because we saw a board in the roadway or something, we got to making up sentences with some related item in each.

    “I’m so board.”

    “Wood you look at that?”

    Etc.

    We were trying to see who could be the one to utter the last witty statement.

    Does that remind you of here?

    LAST!

    Anyway…

    After a while, the repartee got slower and slower, until several minutes had gone by. Hubby had been the last to say something along the theme…

    …until I said out loud, “I just can’t think of anything else! My mind is drawing a complete plank!”

    😀

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to 6 arrows Cancel reply