Aunt Vera

The other day I was at someone's house and saw a box with what looked like old paper towel rolls and some other odds and ends in it, and I thought back to the play box Aunt Vera Weems used to keep at her house.

She had a sizable cardboard box with playthings in it that she kept in the back room off the kitchen, maybe a pantry, and that is where I would head first thing when we went to visit her. The box had old pot pie tins, egg cartons, plastic spoons, discarded kitchen utensils and the like in it. Now don't get me wrong, I liked going over to kids houses that had the fancy, decked out plastic kitchen sets, but there was something so desirable about Vera's set-up, something that still gives me a little thrill when I see objects that remind me of those times.

It was so desirable, in fact, that it inspired fighting betwixt children if there was more than one visiting at the same time. And often there was.

One time when I was staying there, when I was about four or five, another cousin was also there, a much more sophisticated girl of 11 or 12. We sat on the edge of a huge cistern with the lid propped up while she told me the stories of Bloody Fingers and The Girl with the Black Choker. The echoey sound added legions in sound effect. That night as we were all getting ready for bed, Aunt Vera couldn't figure out why I was crying scared, and she also didn't know the cousin had told me Bloody Fingers was watching us through the twitched up slat of the venetian blinds.

I often ponder over childhood and how memories from that time are so set in stone, how the people were like characters, well-defined and impervious. I can still hear Vera's voice and see her with a turban wrapped around her head talking to my grandma about an upcoming funeral, purse hanging from the crook of her elbow.

I don't know why I was at Vera's so much, I'm just glad that I got to be there, with Guy sitting in his chair and always amicable, me playing with a round cork-board globe that had pens and pencils stuck in it, an orchard at the front of the house, where we collected apricots, and bursting through the swinging doors between the tv room and the kitchen.

Did I ever mention that I had a charmed childhood?

NFL Blacks Out Saints - Texans Game

Tonight, those of us who have just changed to DirecTV are getting a taste of sour grapes. The New Orleans Saints and Houston Texans game is blocked from DTV NFL channel 212, and we are finding out that Abilene local station KTES, where the game is airing, is not included in the DTV local channel package.

If you have Dish, you can watch the game on channel 40, since it has also been blocked on the Dish NFL channel. We're hoping to get the Vikings and Seahawks game since it's not local. We better. Or we're gonna... we're gonna... gripe a whole lot!

I Gotta Lotta Anger Inside'a Me

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Aargh! Creationism? Submission? Sex? Who gives a brickety-brack, frickety-frack! Talk about our PAYCHECKS. Talk about GROCERY STORE PRICES. Talk about UTILITY costs. Then, politicians, you will have hit home with all the people in the nation. For Judas sake, can you not even do a simple equation to figure out the common link? Shoot.

About the President

I don't take the Presidency seriously. I have had a lifetime of social instruction that has left me with a flippant attitude towards the POTUS. Let me explain how I have been directed to view our Commander-in-Chief.

I have NEVER, in my lifetime, heard ANYONE refer to any of the Presidents, who have graced the White House since 1965, in a respectful manner. I've seen them derided and lampooned, treated as a constant source of entertainment. I haven't heard a President praised. Not while one was alive. My jaw was on the floor when I heard the effusive eulogies given upon Ronald Reagan's death. During his Presidency, he was ridiculed mercilessly. He was portrayed as an ultra-moron, no bigger fool had ever existed, unless you count all the other Presidents. It's one thing to make fun to keep pedestaled people in their place, it's another to attack their personality and reasoning to the point of breaking them down in the sight of all others.

To those of you out there who can't figure out why the latest generations have no respect for the prestigious offices held by ANY politicians - You have taught your children well!