Flashback Friday # 195

Goodbye Kelly

Hello, It's good to see you again (not really seeing, but you know what I mean).

In last week's post, I was advised by a well liked teacher (Mrs. Redwood, who was my Home-EC teacher & FHA advisor) to part ways with Kelly Stump. After her actions at the Dogpatch Family Night, I was told that I was too good of a kid to be mixed-up with a girl like that. There was only one problem. I had never broken up with a girl before. Anytime I had a girlfriend in the past, they always broke up with me. This was unfamiliar territory.

Those of you who know me in real life, know that I'm not one to be confrontational. To say I'm laid back is an understatement. I wanted to part ways with Kelly, but was clueless on how to do it and almost afraid of the backlash that may come with it.

Since I didn't know what to do, I did nothing. I didn't call her. I didn't return any of her calls. I made efforts to be busy when I knew something was coming up that she'd want to do. She got tired of my non-availability and dumped me for a guy who had a negative I.Q. (I think he could count as high as potato).

Now that I as single again, the quest became to find a new girlfriend (because in High School, you are nothing if you don't have a steady). The next few weeks will cover those disasters.

What I've been Doing

This has been Fair Week around here. I get home from my 7-3 job, change clothes and head off to park cars at 4. There have been a few funny moments this week.

The Girl got some sidewalk chalk in a recent kids meal. She decided to make a rainbow at the base of our tree out front so the squirrels would have something pretty to look at. LOL.

The position I attend at the Fair faces West and from 4-8PM has the sun in my eyes constantly. I have a pair of sunglasses from a previous pair of glasses that almost fit my current glasses. Sunday night, the were constantly falling off due to me being constantly in motion (If I'm sitting in the car driving, they're fine). I restored to taping them to my glasses to keep them in place. It may look dumb, but it works.

The next few pics are of vehicles I saw at the fair that I found interesting:

(this is a windshield wiper on a headlight)


Tonight, the clouds opened and rain fell in sheets. We waited the first hour of parking in the church's big box truck, due to it being too dangerous to be out in it. There was quite a bit of lightning to go with the rain. Once the rain stopped, We set out to park the fair goers. In the section that I man, we parked all of two cars before we were told we could go home. The storms had scared away most of the fair goers. Here is a picture of the big field.


And this is the section where I was at. There were less than 20 cars there. The night before, it was very nearly full.

I'll be posting my latest installment of Flashback Friday tomorrow night, after the fair.

Flashback Friday # 194

Dogpatch Family Night

Greeting one & all. Yes, I know I'm late, but better late than never.

Some of my readers are old enough to know what Dogpatch is. If you're not, I tell you. Dogpatch is the small town that was featured in Al Capp's "Lil' Abner". It was a backwater hovel in the Ozarks that was filled with stereotypical hillbillies. What does this have to do with anything, you might ask?

I have mentioned before that I had joined FHA (because it was loaded with girls). One of the earliest fundraisers of the year for them this year was "Dogpatch Family Night". Someone (I swear it wasn't me.) got the bright idea of setting up a carnival type atmosphere based on the Lil 'Abner comic. There would be a chili & cornbread supper with several booth game (like "fishin' fur prizes" and "spunge toss"). The advisers thought it was a great idea, so it was advertised to the community and all the FHA members were required to be there to help in some way, dressed as a hillbilly.

Aside from the afore mentioned fun, there was also a face painting booth, a dance floor, and games like sack race & 3-legged race. Needless to say, it wasn't too well attended. As the night began to fade away, we were told that we could do anything as long as we were there ,ready to help clean up at 9 PM. Since this was held in the school, clean-up was a must.

While we were wandering around (I was still seeing Kelly Stump at the time, and she also was a FHA member), Kelly suggested we go over to the dance floor and dance. The DJ was a former student known to have an enormous record collection.However, since we were smack in the disco era, his collection of Rock didn't make dancing to it very easy. Ever try to disco dance to Molly Hatchet's "Flirtin' With Disaster"? Kelly was determined to dance, so she did. Her hillbilly outfit consisted of a bibbed jean jumper and flannel shirt. While out on the dance floor, as she was gyrating, EVERYBODY discovered that she wasn't wearing a jumper. What appeared to be a jumper was actually a bibbed set of hot pants with a wrap skirt over it to give it the appearance of being a jumper.

How did everybody discover this? While dancing, she undid her skirt, ripped it off & flung it away. There were audible gasps heard over the blaring music. When Mrs. Redwood (the head FHA advisor) heard what Kelly had done, she marched Kelly aside and had a long talk to her about the appropriateness of her actions. Later, she pulled me aside and commented that I was too good of a kid to be mixed up with someone like Kelly. She advised me to find another girlfriend.

Helping Out Hot Animals

Yesterday, The temperatures were in the high 90's. We have had any meaningful rain since our big storms at the beginning of the month. My wife had an idea. She suggested that we fill a garbage can lid with water so the birds & squirrels could get a drink. The Girl wanted to help.

I had her carry the lid out front and gave her the hose to hold while I went to turn the water on. I purposely made sure the water wasn't turned on very high. It took a while, but we got the lid filled.

Once the lid was filled, we watered all the flowers out front and filled all the bird feeders. When I came back out front after turning the water off, The Girl was standing in the water in the lid.

Flashback Friday # 193

The Main Antagonists of Miss Blunova.

Welcome back. I see that you've decided to stop by once again (What? You came here by accident? Or could it simply be that you got here because it's Friday the 13th? I'm sorry, but I hope you have more accidents like this in the future. I'm always glad when someone stops by).

As I promised (or would that be more along the lines of threatened?) in my last FF post, I'm here to tell you about the three main antagonists of Miss Blunova. I wasn't the best of students, but I did nothing near as bad as these kids did.

We'll begin with ladies first (although she didn't act anything like a lady). Meg was a tomboy through & through. Stocky & athletic, she was no one to trifle with. Being a member of the volleyball & softball team didn't deter her from terrorizing the new teacher. She would say to Miss Blunova, several times during class, "Oh, Shut up!" All of her answers, when called upon, were smart-alecky. She decided, one night to pay Miss Blunova a visit at home. Under the cover of darkness, she snuck up behind her car and began putting sugar in the gas tank. I don't know if Miss Blunova spotted her, or a neighbor did, but the police were called and Meg was nabbed. I know she was punished, but I don't think it involved lost times for any of the sports teams. She was that good.

Next we have Raul. If you looked up the word "antisocial" in the dictionary, there would be a picture of him beside it. I'm thinking he was bi-polar or manic depressive. He was just plain nuts. One day, he brought in a grasshopper that he had killed at lunch. While everyone was filing into class, he stuffed it into her electric pencil sharpener, that she kept on her desk. While we were taking a quiz, she was doing something in the grade book and needed to sharpen her pencil. When the pencil came out, it had a grasshopper leg attached to it. Miss Blunova totally freaked out. Another time, he brought in some Limburger cheese. He removed the liner from her trashcan and smeared the Limburger on the inside of the can, then replace the liner. When she walked in, she made a face that was something off The Little Rascals. She turned the room upside down trying to figure out where that smell was coming from. I think the janitor found it later that day.

However, nobody antagonized Miss Blunova like Arnold. Arnold was voted class clown. His older sister and younger brother were also voted class clowns in their respective graduating class. Arnold was much like Robin Williams. You never knew what was going to happen next. Once he decided to stick entire sheets of paper in his mouth and keep them there until they were really mushy. They would then be flung at the chalkboard while Miss Blunova was writing, or up at the ceiling to see if they would stick (which they did). Another time he brought several freshly sharpened pencils to class. One by one they were flipped into the air and stuck into the ceiling tiles.

His worst offence dealt with pennies. He brought in a bulging pocket full of pennies. A handful would go, into his mouth and get all drooley. When Miss Blunova would write something on the board, they would go flying toward the front of the class. He did this three times before she turned and caught him in the act of putting the pennies in his mouth. She marched over and held out her hand and demanded that he turn over the pennies immediately. He did exactly what she asked. Before she could react, he had filled her hand with saliva coated coins. While she was cleaning off her hand, the main librarian (who was in her 60's) came in pushing the video cart. When she saw the pennies all over the front of the room the exclaimed with delight "Pennies! I want some of those." with that she made haste to gather up as many as she could while the class howled with delight.

A Cheezburger Milestone

I made the Front Page (aka FP) on a Cheezburger site for the 100th time with this picture:

Since this picture hit FP last week, I've had four more. I'm well on my way to 200.

You Get What You Pay For

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. At a recent flea market, I found a 24 pack of Sharpie markers for $3. I couldn't pass that up, since I use Sharpies all the time at work & Sunday School. After the purchase, I set them down with my wife who was sitting at a table. I wanted to check out a few more items before we left. I got a strange text from my wife shortly thereafter. "Do you realize that those were Shoupie markers?" When I got back to her, I checked it out. Sure enough, they were a cheap knockoff. 20 of the 24 worked.

The top pen is a real Sharpie. The bottom one, a Shoupie. A quick glance at the pack sure fooled me.

Flashback Friday # 192

Miss Blunova

Greetings to all. It is good to be back. It's also good to have electricity, seeing that I didn't have it last Friday. I am continuing with my series of teachers that I had as a Sophomore. Since that year is what I refer to as "My Dark Year", I wasn't the best of student, making the lives of my teachers that much harder.

Miss Blunova was fresh out of college and bright eyed, hoping to make a difference in the students she taught.She taught World History, a requirement for all Sophomores to take. She was about 5' 5", medium build and had brown, curly hair to her shoulders. As an elementary teacher, she would have done fine. We weren't elementary kids, we just had juvenile actions.

It started simply enough when several boys changed identities for her class. Pete became Rob. Art became Ken. Whenever roll call was sounded. they chimed in for their alter ego. On the seating chart, they were their alter ego. To make things even worse, there was a set of identical twins in the class that rotated their identities daily. They looked so much alike, I'm sure their momma got them mixed up occasionally.

This tomfoolery escalated daily. I was never as bad as some of the kids in the class, but I sure didn't help things. One day, one of the guys in the back of the class began to quietly meowing like a cat. Another joined in. Yet another joined the choir. Bart & I chimed in. Soon, it sounded like feeding time at the cat shelter. One girl totally freaked out. She sttod up, hands over ears and shouted, "Stop! It sounds like a giant cat is going to crash through the wall".

There was a hit song at the time by The Oak Ridge Boys called "Elvira". Several of the guys picked up the tune and added our teacher's name to it. It went "Blu No Va. Blu No Va. My heart's on fire for Blu No Va. She'd stand, hands on hips and say" That enough. Stop it now". They guys would snicker and guffaw.

One day, one of the guys brought in a Playboy centerfold and taped it to one of the world maps. When she got to the point of showing us the county we were discussing on the map, she pulled down the map and the classroom erupted with hoots & catcalls. At first, she looked puzzled until she turned and saw the picture on the map. Her face immediately turned crimson and she sent the map back up so fast that it almost came undone from it's mount.

One day, we were watching a filmstrip and there was a knock at the door. She excused herself for a moment and stepped out into the hall. While she was gone, someone fast forwarded the cassette that accompanied the filmstrip. That made the filmstrip about 10 frames behind the tape. When she got back into the room and resumed the filmstrip, things were a bit off to say the least. The class was cracking up at the incorrect narrations to the pictures. She couldn't figure out what had happened, making it even funnier.

On another filmstrip, once again as she had to excuse herself, the cassette tape was removed from the player and replaced with a copy of a Richard Pryor tape that I had made for a friend. I figured it was worth the sacrifice, since i could always make another one. When she came back in, and resumed the filmstrip, the crass humor of Pryor filled the room. She about fell over herself trying to turn off the cassette player.

As bad as the things are that you have just read, there were three students in particular that made her life a nightmare. I will expound on these three in next week's post because what they did, will fill an entire post.

Where I've Been & What's Going On

Some of you may have noticed that I missed posting a Flashback Friday post last Friday. There is a very good explanation for that.


Thursday night (when I usually write my Flashback Friday posts) we made a run down to Junior camp so 'The Girl" could see her momma (who was working the camp) and her big brother (who was one of the campers). She missed the so much. We didn't get home until late, and I had to work the next day (I was one of the select few who did our inventory).


Upon coming home, I filled up The Girl's kiddie pool and started laundry. Once a load was in the wash, I went over to the nursing home to put away my MIL's clothes that I had laundered. Upon getting home, I tossed a load in the washer & a load in the dryer. Just as the wash load was coming to an end, a massive storm blew through our area. As I was looking out an upstairs window, I saw a large branch snap off our tree and land on the Step 2 playhouse in the backyard. I figured the house was badly damaged. The wind & rain just didn't want to stop. Reports had he wind clocked at 85 mph.


The lights began flickering. My wife told me to get the computer shut down. No sooner than I got it shut down than we lost electricity. I came back on briefly, but then went off for good. I immediately reached for the flashlight that was given to the men at church on Father's Day. No batteries needed, just squeeze the lever to power it up.


As the rain subsided, I went out to drag limbs from our tree out from out of the road and out of the neighbor's driveway. I them went out to check the playhouse. There was the limb still in place,

I pulled the limb off and surveyed the damage. there was none. Step 2 makes toys that are as tough as the kids that play with them. I went into the house and fished out my battery radio and tuned it to a local station that had interrupted it's regular programming to give us updates on the storm. Thousands had lost power. Trees were down everywhere. Roads were closed due to trees & power lines being strewn across them. It was a mess.

We lost power about 5:15 PM on Friday and didn't get it back on until about 11:00 AM on Monday. A friend had driven over from Pennsylvania to bring a generator to us. It helped save our refrigerated & frozen goods. However, I would only run for an hour a a time, due to a small gas tank. Plus, it was VERY loud. We got an opportunity to purchase a generator from another friend who was out of state during the storm and picked up several generators (seeing there was no crushing demand for them where he was at). This generator was much quieter and would run for 15 hours on a tank of gas.

When the power came on Monday, I was out trying to find a 5 gallon gas can plus another extension cord. There were none to be found. The sales associate at Lowes said she had purchased a can yesterday, and it was still in her car. She said she would return it and allow either me, or another person who was also looking for one to buy it. As soon as I got the message that we had power, I let the other person purchase the can and I returned home to clean up everything.

All totalled, I was able to fill the eight foot bed of my pick-up truck with the limbs that had fallen. I then had to get extension cords, generator, coolers etc. put away. I was plum tuckered out at bedtime, but it sure felt good to be sleeping in the air conditioning opposed to sticking to the bed like we had done the past few nights.

Yesterday, my wife & I made a run to Amish country, since we had to call off our trip to West Virginia. Her family reunion was called off for the first time ever and reports of gas, bread & milk rationing came to us from her cousin. On the way up to Amish country, we could see several trees that were just carved up enough to get them out of the road & off power lines.

Today we made a trip to the Sunbury Flea Market with a friend who has been staying with us during the storm. It was really hot and not as many dealers were there as before. We then stopped to see Dad and came home to cool off before church.

It has been a whirl wind past few days both figuratively & literally. Flashback Friday will return this week at it's regularly scheduled time.