AN AFTERNOON WITH Tory

The doorbell rang and there she was, Tory, my eight year old friend, with a wonderful gift for me. In her hand she held a beautiful bracelet she had made out of beads. The middle of the bracelet was graced with a butterfly bead and on either side were many shiny turquoise and white beads. The bracelet easily slipped onto my wrist and I wore it with pride the rest of the day, even though I came by the wonderful gift second handed since she had originally taken it to another neighbor who wasn’t home, so she generously decided to bring it to me. I was pleased that she thought so highly of me to consider sharing her labors with me.
Tory is a wonderful girl, very giving and cheerful. We have found common interests arts and crafts and gardening.
An hour was spent with Tory helping me prune some plants and pull dead, spindly growths from other wintering ones. She is such a willing worker. When we are out of town I know I can trust her to feed the stray cat who hangs around our house wanting food but absolutely no physical contact from humans. Tory is always trustworthy.
We talked about our lives as we worked together. She became very interested in my conversation when I told her about some of my writings, which I showed her on my computer.
Our next adventure on that particular day included doing some crafts. We have a mutual interest in creativity and, as Tory labeled herself, she’s very “artable“.
We decided to use leaves, water colors and markers to create a wreath to hang on the door. I save pieces of cardboard for just such occasions, so I dug out a couple of pieces of white cardboard. Tory immediately started in on the feat. I handed her a small glass plate and she instinctively knew to use it to trace a circle to begin the wreath. Being very self sufficient, she began the task of creating a wreath. Her only dilemma was whether to “tie-dye” the colors or to “straight line” the colors with a small craft paint brush. She decided to use both, cutting an oblong piece of cardboard and “straight lining” the letters GOD BLESS on it. You see, we have another common interest, that being God. I was able to tell her that many years ago God first identified himself to men saying, “I AM.” She was a little confused but I hope I cleared it up for her by telling her the story is found in the book of Genesis in the Bible when God told some men, “I AM everything to you.” She quickly agreed.
As we progressed on our creative process, Tory cut leaves in smaller pieces and glued them around the outside of the wreath, having successfully glued the small oblong piece with “God Bless” in the center of the wreath. Tory began to “tie dye” some colors around the God Bless, mixing some colors very effectively.
Suddenly Tory astounded me with a statement. She exclaimed, “That color is the color for Texas.” That piqued my interest since I was born and bred in Texas and I wasn’t familiar with Texas having its own color. It became very clear to me what she meant when I looked at the color that emerged when she combined dark yellow and red water colors. It became burnt orange, the color universally identified as one of the colors of the Longhorns of the University of Texas. She confirmed to me that it certainly is a Longhorns color.
A mystery was solved when I asked Tory, “How in the world does a little eight year old born and bred Okie girl know the colors of the Texas Longhorns?” Her reply was that she had a friend. a boy who was from Texas, and he had moved back after a short time in Oklahoma. She said while he was at her school he wore a Texas Longhorn T shirt one day. It seems the principal, an Oklahoma fan, said he would give something from a current school awards program to the boy to take off the offending burnt orange Texas Longhorn T shirt and only wear the underlying white T shirt. The boy was smart and he agreed to accept the bribe.
However, as Tory related to me, the boy quickly put the Texas Longhorns shirt back on over his white T shirt the minute he left the school yard.
I’ve said many times, you can never take Texas out of a Texan.
Tory overheard me telling someone about her knowledge relating to the team colors of the Longhorns and she suggested that I write a story about it. I told her I would, so I’m keeping my promise. I needed some interesting new subject matter, anyway.
It’s amazing what you can learn from an eight year old. I learned that I’m “artable” and that I can “tie dye” water colors and “straight line” water colors and that eight year old girls remember lots of things they learn from eight year old boys, even college school colors. It’s apparent he was a memorable little boy.
I wish I had known all of the things Tory knows when I was eight years old. It’s never too late to learn amazing things from children, especially ones who are smart as well as “artable“.

EXERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

Sometimes our own experiences are the best teacher and sometimes someone else’s experiences are good teachers.
When I was in the fifth grade Philip Smith was the class clown. He was clever, cute and could cuss like a sailor. That made him kind of appealing to the girls because that was in the ‘40s and nobody cussed except our dads, so a young boy who had the courage to cuss kind of intrigued us. One day Philip Smith said a cuss word in class loud enough for Ms. Cox, the teacher, to hear. She immediately expelled him from class and sent him to the principal’s office. He eventually came back into class with a smile on his face. We expected him to be holding his hind parts in pain, but he wasn’t. His eyes were twinkling and he had a big smile on his face . We quizzed him on the reason for the smile and he said that the principal had told him something remarkable. He reported to us that the principal had said, “If there’s anybody in this school who gets to cuss it’s me.” That did the trick. Philip never cussed again in earshot of the teacher.
Philip wrote a clever theme one day about the old saying , “Experience is the best teacher.” He ended it with the statement that everybody thought that experience is the best teacher, but he thought that Mrs. Cox was a lot better teacher than experience.
As you can see, Philip had a way with people. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. He’s probably an actor or a comic or maybe a CEO of some big company because he could BS the best of them.
I tell you about Philip now because Gramps and I had an experience on a trip this weekend that caused me to recall Philip and his theme about experience being the best teacher.
Gramps and I were at a hotel/casino having an inexpensive weekend away from home. I don’t gamble and Gramps only plays a few hands of black jack on occasion. He used to have a problem with gambling but he has learned how to listen to that “still small voice” in the midst of his gut and quit before he loses a lot of money. He didn’t practice that wise behavior for the first 50 years of our marriage but he does now.
We were in the elevator at the hotel/casino going from the fifth floor to the first floor with the intention of eating at one of the great restaurants close to the lobby. There were other occupants of the elevator, a young couple who looked to be in their early twenties and a man who looked to be about forty years old.
Gramps asked the young couple if they were having a good time. The handsome young man remarked that he would have had a good time, except that he had lost about $700 gambling. I gasped and said that that would make a good house payment. The young man’s beautiful wife joined the conversation as she affirmed my statement by remarking, “That’s what I told him.”
The young man sadly said, “Or it would make a truck payment and pay the rent.”
This is where experience kicks into the conversation. I said to the good looking couple, “He,” meaning Gramps, “used to have a problem with gambling but he’s learned when to stop shelling out his hard earned money when he’s gambling now.”
The young man said inquisitively to Gramps, “How long did it take you to learn?”
Gramps and I said in chorus, “About fifty years.”
The young man and woman groaned loudly.
Gramps began to tell them about how he learned to stop gambling before he became a loser every time.
The other occupant of the elevator was listening to the conversation without saying a word.
When the elevator door opened, the young man darted out of the elevator onto the floor of the casino with his beautiful wife trailing along behind. However, the other man paused in front of the elevator to hear Gramps tell him how he has learned to stop shelling out money to the gambling demon when he gets a few bucks behind because that’s a good indication that he is not going to win anymore. Then he told the man that on the rare occasion that he gambles, when he gets pretty far ahead of the money he started with, then he quits and pockets the winnings, takes the winnings to me, then plays with his original investment unless he begins to get a few bucks behind, then he quits for the day.
The man listened intently. I could tell he was not only listening to Gramps’ experience but he was processing the information with keen interest. He told Gramps, “Thanks,” as he walked away.
Like Philip Smith said, sometimes experience is the best teacher. Even someone else’s experiences can be a good teacher. That is often called a testimony. We always learn from someone else’s testimony. They give us hope that we can conquer a problem in our lives because someone else has done it.
As we walked away, I said to Gramps, “Well, I guess they think you’re a real slow learner since it took you fifty years to learn that lesson.”
Gramps said, “No, they think I’m a retarded learner for it to have taken fifty years to learn that.”
I know that couple will think about Gramps and maybe they will decide that fifty years is too long to wait, and maybe the young man will stop gambling altogether.
I do believe that the other man will heed the wise words that Gramps told him and he will wisely monitor his gambling, like Gramps does, before he becomes a big loser. Then when he begins winning, I think that he will take the sizeable winnings to his wife for safe keeping. It’s certainly worked for us.
Maybe Gramps’ experience will be a good teacher for those three people since Philip Smith’s teacher Mrs. Cox isn‘t here to teach that valuable lesson. The experience of Gramps can certainly be the best teacher in this instance.

www.normanrockwellvt.com/Big.jpg/surprise.jpg

CHOICES:BLUEBERRY CREPES OR HEARTY MEATLOAF

Sometimes we are flabbergasted at the choices some people make. Sometimes their choices turn out to be beneficial and sometimes they turn out not to be beneficial. On a recent trip with Bin and Kit we saw the results of a quickly made choice that Bin made.
We were celebrating the 65th wedding anniversary of Rob and Annie, and they graciously invited us to have lunch at a great restaurant. There were lots of college students there, plus many other people of varying ages. All seemed to be enjoying their gourmet meals.
When we sat down we all gazed around at the meals being served to people at tables in close proximity to ours. Bin’s eyes fixated on a plate of blueberry crepes. He decided right then and there that that would be his choice of a meal. After all, it was listed on the entrée menu, not solely on the dessert list.
Gramps hurriedly decided to order the meatloaf plate, which I wondered about since this was known as an upper scale restaurant. Kit made the same choice and questioned Bin about his choice of the crepes. He was immoveable. He wanted the crepes.
The rest of us chose various things. Mine was goat cheese and shrimp quesadillas, Rob’s was eggs Benedict with salmon. Annie chose some fancy cheese filled crepes along with chicken, artichoke and mushroom soup. Kit also ordered the soup and some jalapeno, pecan and artichoke stuffing as side dishes to her meatloaf.
That should give you an idea of what a plethora of interesting things the menu contained. Bin persisted in his order of blueberry crepes. When the waitress brought the plates, Gramps and Kit’s plates had servings that left us with bug-eyed. The meatloaf looked like a half pound slice of meat on each plate, the biggest serving I’ve ever seen. My plate was completely covered with the quesadillas. Annie’s plate was overflowing with her order, as was Rob’s. Bin’s plate had three small blitzes (crepes) in the middle of the huge plate. It was topped with sweet blueberry sauce.
Bin’s face fell into a distinctive look, much like that of a sad, sad basset hound. His crepes were delicious, he said, but he eventually finished his meal before the rest of us had finished a fourth of our hearty meals.
I tried really hard not to look at Bin, knowing that if I continued to see his sad look that I would possibly get choked on my food from laughing. You know me, I couldn’t resist; and, yes, I almost got choked.
When we all ordered desserts Bin refrained from ordering because he had already gone over his daily allotment of sugar since he’s diabetic.
As we all inhaled our wonderful desserts, Bin continued with his basset hound demeanor, sad that he had already had his meal which was customarily considered as a dessert while the rest of us were consuming meat hearty meals. We felt sympathy for Bin, but we also enjoyed laughing with him about his choice. Yes, he was laughing along with us.
The whole occasion reminded me of the Apostle Paul in the Bible. He said that there were some people who preferred teachings that were like milk instead of meat. He said that he could only serve some people spiritual milk because that is all they can eat and digest. He also said that there were people in Corinth to whom he could feed meat because they had well formed spiritual digestive systems that could handle truths that were meaty. They were able to chew them up completely, swallow them and safely digest them. He said that the Holy Spirit would make the truths part of their being.
Bin liked his blueberry crepes because they were delicious, but he longingly looked at the hearty meat loaf that Kit and Gramps had on their plates, probably cognizant of the fact that the meat would stay in their systems a long time but he might be hungry again in a few hours.
Both meals were delicious and nutritious, the crepes and the meatloaf. The meatloaf was full of iron and bulk, though, and had staying power.
Little did Bin know when he made the choice between the crepes and the meatloaf that he would give us lots of laughs and also a valuable visual lesson on what Paul was saying to the Corinthians. He was saying to the Corinthians, “Order the meatloaf next time.”
Gramps couldn’t resist continuing on with the ribbing. After we came home he cut a recipe out of the paper for blueberry crepes and sent it to Bin. Kit later reported to us that Bin laughed and laughed when he opened the letter containing the recipe.
I still laugh every time I visualize Bin’s basset hound look when he visually compared his plate of blueberry crepes with the two other plates laden with man sized slices of meatloaf.
I’m certainly not comparing Bin to the Corinthian milk drinkers because Bin is certainly a deeply religious man. I’m just using his experience as an example of the importance of choices in our lives.
What is appealing to the eyes is not always the right choice. Just ask Adam and Eve. They made the wrong choice and look where all of us are in the earth, every day having to choose between blueberry crepes and hearty meatloaf.
Choices do make a difference.