the other night a mother of 2 and one of her toddlers were killed in a car accident.
her other toddler was rushed by helicopter to the emergency room.
this child died 2 days later.
people in another car were injured in the wreck as well.
the mother had been texting in the rain in a construction zone at night.
I left the house today to do a simple errand.
My medicine was screwed up for the SECOND time. I pulled out a gun and shot up the entire pharmacy. As I strolled out of the pharmacy full of blind hatred for anything that moved, I decided to take out the little old lady on the way to the car too. THAT STILL DIDN'T ALLEVIATE MY RAGE!
So when I drove down the road I started to pop all the little kids playing by the road at the school. Now THAT cheered me up!
I feel better now.
That will teach the pharmacy to screw up my PMS medicine again.
My stepdaughters and I sat there for 10 minutes wondering what would happen. Exactly when the second hand of the clock passed the 10 minute mark we heard a key in the door. 
...we used to fight over who got to be the indians.
Now in the days of political correctness you can't play because the indians supposedly always lose. Apparently nobody ever played in our backyard. Whoever won the war did so because of cunning and ingenuity and brute strength.
The indians were just as likely to win as the cowboys. If you were a cowboy you were lucky to get a hat and a gun. The indians got to paint their faces, and use bows and arrows and guns. They ran around whooping and hollering and having a high, old time. If we were lucky enough to find a bird feather somewhere, it was the icing on the cake!
As for shooting each other. We knew it was all pretend and we had great drama dying from our wounds. Nothing takes longer to die and does it with more drama than a 10 year old who has been "mortally wounded".
We were all terrified of Mamie Thurman. She was murdered on 22 mountain in the 1930's. The story I grew up with is actually scarier than the truth. I have posted an article about her true story in my next blog. I grew up thinking that she was beheaded on top of a large rock on top of 22 mountain. No one ever found her killer. There are stories to this day that she still roams 22 mountain looking for justice.
When I was in junior high school a friend drove a bunch of us to the top of 22 mountain on Halloween night. The plan was for us all to walk down the mountain and see what we could see. Everybody chickened out except for me. (I was a daredevil even in those days) We sat on top of the mountain arguing about walking down the mountain for about 1/2 an hour. Finally a couple of us got out and we were going to start walking when as the van pulled out my friends started screaming for it to wait for them. They got back in the van.
I walked all the way down from the top of 22 mountain to the bottom - just me and a flashlight. I DID NOT SEE ANYTHING THE WHOLE WAY DOWN. I DID NOT HEAR ANYTHING THE WHOLE WAY DOWN EITHER. When I got to the bottom of the mountain my friends were waiting for me in the van (some practically in tears). They were all yammering about the scary noises they kept hearing around the van. They were very glad to see me because they were all sure that I would be murdered - but I wasn't.
We used to play that game that I have learned there is a version of it in every part of the country. You know the one. You go into the bathroom with a candle and turn all the lights out. Then you stand in front of the mirror and start chanting "Mamie Thurman show your face" over and over. Supposedly after 10 times she will appear in the mirror. I have to confess that I NEVER did have the nerve to finish that little game. We would ALWAYS run from the bathroom screaming before we got to 10.
A couple of years ago channel 3 ran a story. In it they did a demonstration. If you park your car facing downhill on 22 mountain and put it in neutral - IT WILL ROLL BACKWARDS UPHILL. Now that was strange. Their car actually did it! I am sure there is a logical explanation though (although I don't know it). It's like when you go to one of those "mystery hole" tourist attractions and everything is backwards. It's a lot of fun and doesn't make any sense. They always tell you there is a flaw in the earth's magentic field or something.
I almost forgot the scariest story of all. One time when we were driving back from a car auction one of the drivers told this story. He said he got it from the "old timers". The old timers said they would be in a dive called the Green Lantern (I can remember that bar). There was a beautiful woman with dark hair and a polka dot dress. (Mamie Thurman was wearing a polka dot dress when she was killed) They would dance and drink and then she would ask for a ride home. They would be driving down the road and the man would look over and ask where she needed to go and she would be gone - vanished into thin air!
My visit to Shutter Island was scarier than the movie. When I watched the movie again I could see the inspiration for my nightmare.
However, the movie was better than my dream. It had a plot and was much more interesting.
My dream was more of a slash and grab dream. Making my way through that mental hospital was much more intense than the movie could ever be. I was actually living the movie.
Last night when I got home from work I popped in the DVD "Shutter Island". I was very tired and I couldn't stay awake. I tried unsuccessfully to stay awake throughout the whole movie. This resulted in a strange mixture of the movie and me being in the movie.
The mixture of the movie and my extreme confusion in the dream made for a very entertaining evening.
I believe I deserve an academy award after my performance.
After my granny died, I wanted to remember her in my own way. I put on a nice dress and stopped by my mom's house on the way to granny's house. Out of the blue my mom offered to let me have the key to granny's house so that I could go in. This was something that I did not expect to happen because my mom doesn't usually do things like that.
I let myself into granny's house and went from room to room reliving childhood memories. The rooms were all empty because my mom had either sold or thrown away everything in the house. I went upstairs to my aunt's old room which had been granny's favorite. I stayed in there quite awhile just looking out the window at the view and remembering.
I started to walk out of the room and I thought to myself "no I can't leave yet." I turned around and went back in and just stood looking around some more. Then I walked over to the window and went I looked down there was a cross. I had just stood there for about 20 minutes and I hadn't noticed it. Yet there it was. The only thing of value in a house that had been stripped bare of everything.
My granny was a typical Aunt Bea kind of granny. She was very religious. She liked to act like Granny Clampett for fun - that's why we called her granny. She was always full of love. Everytime we went to her house there was a special cake or pie and my Aunt Mary Ann would have our favorite Lipton Lemon Ice Tea. I have no doubt that she left that cross there for me.
I was 5 years old. Here is what I remember.
I woke up in the car in the middle of the night and it was crammed with boxes. Billy and Rhonda and I barely fit in the backseat. We had to stand up.
My Raggedy Andy doll drowned in the flood. I lost all my blocks.
My mom says that they barely got us out of the house in time. The water came up so fast that it was swirling around our beds when they carried us out. My dad borrowed a truck from a friend who owned a store and saved many of our possessions. We stayed with friends for a few days until the water subsided and our parents were able to clean the river mud out of the house. The water was several feet deep in the house. The waterline on the wall was higher than I was tall.
My hometown of Logan, WV, used to flood several times a year. When I was in high school they built the RD Bailey Dam. This solved the problem. Now it only floods every few years. It was an excellent use of tax dollars.
Last night when I got home from work I popped in the DVD "Shutter Island". I was very tired and I couldn't stay awake. I tried unsuccessfully to stay awake throughout the whole movie. This resulted in a strange mixture of the movie and me being in the movie.
The mixture of the movie and my extreme confusion in the dream made for a very entertaining evening.
I believe I deserve an academy award after my performance.
My Aunt Patty and my Uncle Gerald gave me 5 garbage bags full of warm coats and clothes to give away in the building today.
Yesterday Anita gave me 3 warm blankets. I gave them to a vet today. Unfortunately he has a drinking problem but he is trying to overcome it. A lot of people in the building have been helping him (which is unusual). When I gave him the blankets (and a gallon of milk), he happily yelled out, "I LOVE this place!"
The board spelled out for us to go to the basement, wait 5 minutes, turn out the lights and shut the door and she would give us a sign. Sherri and I went to the basement, shut the door and turned out the lights and got scared and ran out after about 30 seconds. We went back to the Ouija board and asked her to make the time shorter. The Ouija board said for us to go to the basement, shut the door and turn out the lights and count to 10 and she would give us a sign. We complied even though we were absolutely scared out of our minds. We stood at the foot of the stairs, holding each others hands and counted to 10 out loud.
As soon as we said 10 there was a long scratch down the wall beside the door. It went from floor to ceiling (the ceiling is about 15 foot tall in that basement). It sounded like somebody scratching a chalkboard with their fingernails. Needless to say we were terrified. We hesitated at first to run out the door, but it was the only way out. We ran completely out of the house!
I had to figure out what to do because there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in my house that night. We went back to the Ouija board and it made all sorts of awful threats about what it was going to do that night. I asked how to get rid of the spirit in the house. It said to go in the basement and pour the water in a circle around one of the posts in there. Sherri refused to go back down there with me but she did agree to stand watch at the door while I carried out that dreaded task.
I raced down the stairs. I took a pitcher of water and I hurriedly flung it in a circle around the closest pole. I raced back out of the basement and Sherri slammed the door behind me! There was a gap at the bottom of the door about an inch wide. Sherri and I bent down and looked through the crack. There was steam rising in the corner of the basement.
To this very day when Sherri and I happen to run into each other and we are reminiscing about our childhood. When one of us says "Do you remember...". We both start laughing hysterically and our eyes shine with the knowledge that something absolutely mystical and awful happened to us that day.
My mom noticed my dad because he used to make Zorro marks on her arm in junior high school
He used to hitchhike from Georgia to West Virginia every weekend to see my mom and then hitchhike back again by Monday morning. If he would have been late, he would have been AWOL. He was never AWOL
When I was first married I decided to make homemade biscuits. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed my biscuits with the meal. About an hour later I went back to the table. I thought I would enjoy one of my homemade biscuits with a little jelly and butter for a snack.
I went to open the biscuit to slather on the jelly and it was hard as a brick. My delicious biscuits had turned into hockey pucks in the hour or so since dinner. I was truely distressed since the only time I had ever heard of this happening in my life was on the Beverly Hillbillies when they made fun of Ellie Mae's biscuits.
I threw them outside for the birds to eat.
I have never tried to make biscuits again in my life.
I was hanging out in the guardshack waiting to do turnout when I looked out the window to see 2 trainers jumping the fence (these were 9 foot fences) into AJ's kennel. I took off running because I knew that this had to be a bad fight if they didn't take the time to use the gate. The compound guard was right behind me.
When I got to the turnout pen I saw nothing but a massive, seething pile of dogs and they weren't making any noise. Anytime you have a dogfight where there is no noise it is bad because that means the dogs are busy killing something - not just barking and growling and wreaking mayhem! AJ was standing off to the side holding a dog back and screaming for help. Her brand new helper was just standing there in shock, not moving, but that is actually a common reaction for somebody seeing their first dogfight. I didn't hold that against him.
The 2 trainers that had jumped the fence were each holding 2 dogs back and there was no one else left to help. I knew at the bottom of that pack of dogs was some poor dog who was dying. I started to grab collars and just pull the dogs back and literally throw them behind me one after another. I could feel the dog, at the bottom of the pile, flesh ripping as I pulled each dog off of it. But I had to pull each dog off because there was no other way to stop the fight. I couldn't SEE the dog on the bottom, I just knew it was there. As I threw the dogs off the guard was behind me trying to hold them back (by intimidation) because as soon as I threw one back it would charge the pile again. This went on for 10 minutes (we figured out the timing later)
Finally I got the pile of dogs down to where I could see the dog. There were still 4 or 5 dogs latched on to that poor animal. It was in shock, it could not move, it had quarter sized holes all over it that made me think of spots on a dalmation. The only thing that I could do at this point was to drag the poor animal to the gate of the turnout pen. I dropped it behind the gate wedging in between the wall and the gate. Then I just went crazy screaming and kicking and hollering using the gate to keep the other dogs off the poor thing! It was awful. Finally I was able to pick the dog up (it weighed about 60 lbs) and carry it to a crate.
I put the it in a crate and I went back out to AJ. She was standing there crying. I told her I would watch her dogs while she went in to tend to the dog's wounds. I looked over at her poor helper who was still standing there staring. I asked him if he needed help and he slowly shook his head. I looked him in the eye and told him, "Here's where you decide if you want to do this for a living. I think AJ could use your help inside now."
He went in to help AJ. (he quit the next day)
Then I saw my boss pull up to my kennel. I told the guard to go get him because he was a trainer with over 30 years experience and all of us together in the pen that day had about 5 years between us. Bob came over and helped AJ nurse the dog (it had to be put down). Then we went over to our kennel to do turnout. I couldn't help because I was covered with blood from head to toe. It caused the pack instinct to kick in my dogs and they wanted to attack me and each other. I had to go home.
That fight left me with a bad case of post traumatic stress syndrome. Thankfully even though I helped break up several fights over the years, none of them were anything even close to that magnitude. When I went back to the guardshack that day the guard, who was a Vietnam Vet, told me he would follow me into battle anytime. I consider that a huge complement. I went to work at other tracks after that and when I went back to TriState years later, they were still talking about "THE fight".
One time I decided to move my waterbed. I drained it and I ran out of time to finish the job so I left for work. I did not turn off the heater. I did not take out the mattress. I guess you can see where this is heading?
A few hours later just as Bobby was leaving to go hunting, he smelled something burning. As he walked around trying to figure out what it was he walked past the bedroom. Just as he was walking by the mattress burst into flames in front of his eyes. He hurriedly scooped up the mattress and threw it outside but the boards of the bed had also caught fire!
At least disaster was averted!
I came home to find my waterbed in a heap in the front yard.
Lesson learned.
...
I was working in a kennel and something was wrong with the hotplate that we used to cook rice. I was getting shocked everyday when I plugged it in so I was trying different things so I wouldn't get shocked. One day I did the absolute WRONG thing!
I set the pot on the hotplate. THEN I plugged it in. I took a metal feed pan and filled it with water and started to pour it in the pot.
It's funny now - but I guarantee you I will never repeat it!
