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.

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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.

SLIPPING MINDS AND SLIPPERY PILLS

This is "BIN," better known as Rich
Most of our senior friends and relatives are always concerned about losing things, misplacing things, forgetting things, etc. We all agree that the most perplexing thing is going into a room and standing in utter amazement, wondering why we are there and what we went into the room to retrieve. That’s not just a daily occurrence, it’s several times a day. We also talk about misplacing things that we just had in our hands several minutes ago.
On our recent trip to Texas we had a really good laugh at/with my brother-in-law Rich, who said he doesn’t mind me mentioning his name. I wanted to call him BIN for Brother-In-Law but he says he’s not modest and gave me permission to use his actual name. He doesn’t mind being laughed at.
When I went to the kitchen of their home, I heard Rich say, “I need to take my pills before we leave on our trip.” He went to the cabinet, took out his pills and vitamins, put them on the cabinet like we all do. There in plain view was the stack of his various pills to take.
I turned and went to the adjoining room. Suddenly I heard him say, “Where did my pills go? They were right here on the cabinet.“
Rich had mysteriously lost his pills on their journey from the cabinet to his mouth. I gave him a really hard time about that. How can you lose pills on their journey from the cabinet to your mouth? That’s nutty, not just a matter of senior-absent-mindedness.
“Maybe I threw them in the trash,” Rich remarked in disgust at himself. He went to the trash bin and searched all the way down to the bottom of the trash, which is never a pleasant task. No pills.
It was starting to get serious. He spoke about his mind slipping, like all of us can attest to who are over 60, but now his pills were also slipping into oblivion. He had not moved from the appointed place at the cabinet where he always takes his pills.
As I am laughing uncontrollably at Rich’s predicament, which he found to be not as funny as I did at this point, he is understandably totally confused because he had lost the pills somewhere between the cabinet and his mouth. How could this be? Was there a pill snatching fairy who exists to keep senior citizens on their toes wondering if they’re losing their minds?
The mystery was finally solved when Rich opened the drawer of the cabinet and saw the pills in a nice little stack next to the scissors, which he had used to open his over-the-counter antihistamine.
See, the pharmaceutical companies are in a conspiracy again. Not only do they make pill bottles that seniors cannot open, but they make over-the-counter pills in ridiculously encased cardboard sheets that we have to use scissors to separate a single pill from the cardboard instead of being able to easily push them out of the foiled top like we should be able to do. It’s impossible.
I know that the designers of those antihistamines are envisioning gently aging seniors citizens struggling with the packaging of over-the-counter pills, and they’re laughing at us. It’s, simply put, a conspiracy.
However, I don’t think there are many people who scoop up their pills and deposit them in the drawer with the scissors they just used on the difficult packaging.
Rich got our trip off to a good start as we talked a long time about his slipping mind and the slippery pills that ended up in the scissor drawer. That got us started on a good humor wave which lasted all day.
Rich was a good sport but I’ll always think of him as BIN (brother-in-law) who lost his pills on their journey from the cabinet to his mouth.

MEME'S PICKLED LEGS

It’s been eons since I’ve slept past 4:30 in the morning. I wake, write in my blogs, do early morning chores and other necessary things before everyone else in the Southeast gets up. I’m used to it but often wished I could sleep until at least 6:30.
I woke at 2:30 this morning with paralyzing cramps in the calf of my right leg. That hasn’t happened since I started taking Dr. Gott’s advice and putting an unwrapped bar of soap under the bottom sheet of my bed. Often I would have a slight tightening in my calf, but I would rub a bar of soap on it and it would go away. Don’t ask me how it works, it just does. Dr. Gott said in his newspaper column that it might work and it has for Gramps and for me.
This morning at 2:30 I woke to horrible cramps in the calf of my right leg. I walked around. No relief. I rubbed the calf with a bar of soap (I can hear you laughing). No relief. I sat on the closed stool lid in the bathroom so as to not wake Gramps while I massaged the affected area very hard trying to work out the cramps. No luck.
I thought maybe if I were to get back in bed it would go away. That was wishful thinking. The cramps became more intense and I barely was able to get out of bed. I was only able to roll out of the bed, endeavoring to stand up without screaming in pain.
Suddenly the thought crossed my mind to drink pickle juice. I vaguely remembered reading that some football coaches give pickle juice to their players who have cramps during a game.
Being desperate, I limped painfully down the hall toward the kitchen disgusted because nothing seemed to even help the leg, let alone totally relieve the pain.
I opened the fridge and spotted a jar of bread and butter pickles, the only jar of pickles in the fridge. Grabbing the jar, unscrewing the top, I wondered how much pickle juice to drink. Shoot, if one drink would work, then two or three would certainly cure my problem. I swigged the pickle juice just like a thirsty man swigs water. First drink, the tightening seemed to lessen. Must be my imagination.
Second drink, I could feel the calf relaxing.
Third drink, the pain was completely gone.
How could this be? The pickle juice hadn’t had time to get to my stomach yet.
I stood there in front of the open door of the fridge in utter amazement. Surely this was not a total cure. I walked unaffected back to bed, wondering if the relief would last after I got in bed.
It did. I had no pain, no tenderness, no cramping. Instant sleep came.
I woke at 6:30, not my habitual 4:30.
Okay. If it did that for me, maybe I’ve found a cure for insomnia. When I wake at 2:30 to go to the bathroom in the morning, I’m going to go into the kitchen, take a couple of swigs of bread and butter pickle juice, go back to bed, and if I wake at 6:30 again I will write to Dr. Gott about my cure for insomnia.
After I told Gramps about my miracle, he decided he would take a swig of the same pickle juice when his hands cramped up, like they do every day while reading the newspaper or a magazine. He opened the newspaper, began to read it. Both hands immediately cramped up. His hands were frozen in place by the cramps. He dropped the newspaper, grabbed the pickle jar with grossly distorted hands, took two drinks of the pickle juice and the cramping went away immediately. Glory be!
The only problem is, our breath could light a candle because the bread and butter pickle juice has Tabasco in it.
Oh, heck, I don’t care. It’s just good to have lucked onto this cure for leg cramps, hand cramps and possibly insomnia.
Can you believe this? While reading the paper this morning I read that Dr. Gott’s topic for the day was about pickle juice for leg cramps. How timely was that? I’ll bet he doesn’t know about using pickle juice for insomnia. I’ll have to try it out tonight.
Do not ever throw your pickle juice away. You might need it to cure various and sundry things in the future. Pickle juice might put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.

R FOR RAUNCHY

R rated movies have finally taken a toll on Gramps and me. The R rating passed us by on its downward stroll to the gutter. Several months ago we went to a movie at our Dollar Movie Theater that we thought was rated PG-13. We liked the actors and the movie had gotten a three star review rating, meaning it was only one star off of the highest rating. In the first five minutes of the movie I saw more nude male genitalia than I did in the first fifteen years of our marriage. It was full frontal nudity. Now, you know that there are two kinds of sexual scenes in movies. There are dirty scenes and there are shocking scenes in movies. The dirty scenes are truly offensive and aimed at the minds of twelve year old boys or dirty old men who are consumed with sex. The shocking scenes, even though there is nudity, are merely there to shock us and they don’t seem to be offensive to me because there‘s no depravity, just some nudity. During the first two minutes when the frontal nudity appeared on the screen I thought, “Well, I’m old enough to handle a little nudity since there are no sexual acts performed on the screen.” That lasted about another five minutes until there were scenes with people “doing it” on the desk, on the bed, on the kitchen cabinet and every other place in the house, plus at the office of the characters. The only redeeming thing about that movie was that there wasn’t any really offensive language, just slang words that young boys love to use for shock value. Gramps and I stayed and saw the whole movie, too shocked to make a spectacle of ourselves by leaving. The story was a precious love story and had redeeming qualities, but the nudity and sexual scenes ruined the good story. How did we get there to see something so offensive? Gramps must not have had his reading glasses on, because it was actually rated R, not PG-13 like he erroneously had relayed to me. Last Sunday on our way to the movie theater I remarked that I would like to see a certain movie which had a real R rating but it had gotten raving reviews as a comedy, another three star rating. I, in my naivete, believed that the R rating, because the movie is a comedy and the cast was made up of many, many well known actors, would only have violent scenes and crude and rude humor like it was reported in the reviews, but nothing to embarrass and offend Gramps and Me. Wrong! This movie was so filled with vile language that Gramps and I only lasted about ten minutes before we left and went to what is referred to as a “chick” movie which was sweet and loving and had great morals about friendship and good relationships. That’s the great thing about going to the Dollar Movie Theater, if you don’t like a movie showing on one screen, you can leave one and go to another one. I finally figured out something about the R rated movie that we left. I think the director assembled a group of talented comics, dressed them up in combat gear, gave them a weak plot, and told them to have a contest to see which one of the ten men could use the most vile cuss words and sexual descriptions in the hour and half time it took to film the movie. It couldn’t have taken more time than that to film the debacle. I really think that’s what happened. Those poor guys, they reverted back to immature little boys and let their mouths loose without restraint. I am really disappointed in the actors because I know some of them are fathers. Their kids must be used to that kind of language around their houses because if their fathers have no filtering on their mouths in front of a camera, then you know they don’t filter their words at home. There were parents with young children in the R rated movie who remained there until the end. I know that because, being curious, after our sweet movie ended I waited to see who exited the R rated one. Yes, the families came out of it. I’m hoping that the parents of those children used the movie for a learning experience, teaching their kids that simple minded grown men make fools of themselves by acting like mentally deranged potty mouths. Somehow I think I’ve being naïve about that, too. Those offensive words will erupt from the mouths of their children at some inconvenient moment, probably in front of a grandparent or a teacher, and the parents will be embarrassed and probably whack the child across the mouth for saying it. Hey, the child was programmed by that R rated movie to think that cool people talk like that. The children and their parents would have loved the “chick” movie that Gramps and I ended up seeing. They would have all left with a clean feeling in their minds instead of a dirty, polluted one. Gramps and I have been very lucky in our viewing of movies at the Dollar Movie Theater. We’ve seen some wonderful ones. However, Hollywood has spiraled downward in movie dialogue and actions. Now that I’ve gotten my mind out of the clouds and seen what’s happening in the gutter, I think I’ll just write some letters. How about you?

MAGICAL SOAP

Nathan's Green Apple Collage "age 9"

Gramps and I are firm believers in preventing night leg cramps by putting a bar of soap under the fitted sheet in our bed. We both keep a bar of soap on our side of the bed. We even carry two bars of soap with us when we travel and place them in the beds in motel rooms and in beds where we visit. We've forgotten to retrieve them and have left them as calling cards in many motel rooms. I know the maids have wondered what in the world they are doing in the beds. Our relatives understand us and just save the soap that we leave in their beds until our next visits. We really never doubted that it works and we've told our own children about it many times. They probably think we're loony, but we don't question success. We rarely have leg cramps at night now, where we used to have them all the time. Not long ago when we were visiting California our precious grandson Nathan sprained his ankle skateboarding. He had a hard time getting up the stairs of their house leading to his bedroom but he finally did, grimacing in pain all the way. I fixed an ice pack for him and took it upstairs to his room and placed it on the affected ankle, which was beginning to swell. We were all going to take an important trip the next day and Nathan wanted to make sure that the ankle would be well so he wouldn't be hampered. Nathan asked me in a pitiful, woeful voice, "Grandma, do you think if I put a bar of soap on my ankle or put one under my sheet that it will make my sprained ankle get well faster?" There's one person who believes in the magical bar of soap that we use. I assured him that a bar of soap under the sheet is only good for leg cramps. Now that I think about it, I wish Nathan and I had tried it. We might have discovered a new cure for a sprained ankle. Athletes everywhere would have been grateful to Nathan for the discovery. Grandchildren believe everything we say so be careful what you discuss around them. By the way, Gramps' brother says that the reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well together is they have a common enemy. Truer words were never spoken!

MOLDY MOUTHS

Our grandson Neil spent a few weeks with us for several summer beginning when he was seven years old. Neil taught us how to be good grandparents.
Neil was even responsible for getting rid of Grandpop's sternness by calling attention to Grandpop's "The Look." Neil would fall out of his chair as if he was suddenly vaporized by "The Look", and that would make Grandpop laugh. We rarely saw "The Look" after that summer.
One day while Neil was swimming in the pool and was spending most of his time under water, like he always did at that age, his head suddenly popped out of the water and he made a declaration which he has kept even to this day. He said, "Grandma, I've just decided to always be generous and kind like all of the Filipinos."
While visiting with us, his primary thoughts were always about taking gifts home to his parents and all of his cousins. We spent many hours picking out gifts for them. His suitcases were always laden with gifts from Oklahoma, so it really was part of his Filipino heritage. They are definitely generous and kind people.
Here is a poem Neil wrote when he was visiting us when he was eight years old. He's a wonderful philosopher!

"The world goes round from you and me,
Together we are family,
Do not gripe and do not scold
Or your mouth just might turn into mold."

Grandparents, watch out for your moldy mouths.