The Secret Sister Society.

There is a little club at one of my favorite churches. This little club has about fifteen to twenty ladies who draw a name from a little basket, and find out who is going to be their "Secret Sister" for about eight weeks.

Each week they bring a little gift, not expensive, but very thoughtful, and secretly put it in the community room on top of the piano. No one knows who has whom. Sometimes the ladies send their little gift through the mail, or drop it off at the church incognito, or even have someone else bring it in, to keep their identity a secret.

This mysteriousness increases its momentum as the eight weeks go by. This past Sunday, the leader had invited the Secret Sisters and other women to come to her home at a certain hour, where all would enjoy a most delicious Pot Luck Dinner and some mighty fine desserts. Afterwards the meeting came to order, well, not really, but the leader said, "Now is the time." She asked each lady, "Do you have any idea who your Secret Sister is?" Most of the women had no clue, but a couple of them said they did have an inkling of their Secret Sister's identity.
     
Every member of the Secret Sister Society found out who had been sending or leaving such thoughtful inexpensive gifts to her. The variety of gifts was quite incredible, as a lot of thought went into the choosing of the gifts. Some ladies told about certain gifts, and one could see how thrilled they were at receiving such unexpected and wonderful presents.

It was really a wonderful evening for me, because I do like to be around people and study them. They were all so happy to be together, and there were so many little conversations going on, except for the 'meeting' time. What a great evening it was! I feel so blessed to know so many loving and caring people.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Wakeful in the wee hours; drawing a pumpkin; my Christmas list.

Another wakeful moment, it turned into a wakeful two hours. This frequently happens to me. Time was, when this happened in my late teen years, I would think and think and think, instead of getting out of bed to write a letter or read for a while. I didn't know how to cope with this wakefulness. Now I realize that it is normal for me.

I used to think that we humans were all wired under the rule of the twenty-four hour cycle. I've begun to feel that some of us have different cycles. Mine seems to be something like thirty to thirty-six hours.

When this happens to me now, I get out of bed, take a drink of water, perhaps go into the kitchen and make a batch of cookies, or start cooking a soup of some kind, or do up my dirty dishes that I was too tired to do before bedtime, while listening to some of my old recorded audio cassettes. I like all kinds of music, but I tend to listen to polkas at these times. Years ago, I taped many of my favorite polka programs and am so grateful that I have them. There are very few polkas played on the radio in this area.
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This morning, at 3:15, I got out of bed and decided to begin my drawing of a pumpkin to put on my garage door. On September 11th, I put up an old newspaper page with the United States flag, dated September 11, 2001 (which I found in one of my boxes from storage), and it has gotten very pale in the sunshine. I thought it would be 'a good thing' (as Martha Stewart says) to put up a drawing of a pumpkin on October 21. I drew a large leaning pumpkin, as they sometimes grow because of the weight they accumulate. I used some old orange crayons that I found in another box, and Voila! a Hallowe'en Pumpkin.

I may have told you already about my first-grade school on Buttonwood Street. One of the most vivid memories I have of first grade is the pumpkin we were asked to color. The teacher handed out sheets of paper with a large drawing of a pumpkin. We were directed to color this pumpkin orange. Orange has been my almost favorite color ever since, or maybe before, I can't remember that point, and it remains one of my most-liked colors.

What a beautiful pumpkin it was after I colored it with an orange crayon, one of eight colors in our little boxes of crayons. I still can envision that beautiful bright orange pumpkin! So that is what I did during the Wee Hours of this morning, but since I didn't have a line drawing of a pumpkin, I had to draw it myself. Now it's ready to tape to the garage door, as I write, and I am eager for daylight to arrive.  I wish I knew how to add a photo to this blog, so you could see my lack of talent. But at least it's orange!
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Some of us in my large family like to draw names for our Secret Santa, and then we are to send an email of our Christmas list. We would like any gift, but the 'givers' want to have many suggestions to choose from, so they can surprise the 'receivers'. We usually have a lot of fun seeing what everyone has on their list.

A few days ago I found an old Christmas list of mine, and I'd like to publish it here, just for the sake of nostalgia.

"Grannamae's Christmas List: Postage stamps; A case of the giggles; Blank audio cassettes; Photo albums with pockets; Photo albums with paper pages and 'corners' for the photos; Armchair travel books to read; Picture travel books; Time in a bottle (or any suitable container); Calendars; Coffee mugs; Old poetry books, used; Old used music books; Old primary grades music book (preferably with "Two Little Roses" if possible -- if not possible, any will do); Mars Staedtler drawing pen; Eggs (decorative); Walkman cassette player."

My daughter Anne Marie had my name, and she did give me Time in a bottle: a baby food little jar with dried thyme in it, with a little cloth cover and bow for the lid. I thought that was quite clever. She also gave me some other things, but I don't remember what, now.

I must prepare a little list of things I might like for Christmas this time, before it's too late. If we are too late with our lists, we'll just accept what the Secret Santa desires to give us. That's all right with me, I am easy to please.

It's almost time for the daylight to arrive, so I'd better go and take a nap before that happens. I know I will have a nice day, as I usually do, and if necessary, I can take a power nap sometime during the day.

I'll see you around the Corner Post...
                                   

Band Competition; My Birthday Weekend; My Birthday High.

Yesterday there was a Band Competition at Southaven High School, and it was the longest 'half-time show' ever! I had not seen anything so grand, inventive, colorful, beautiful, and interesting before. I whimsically called it a very, very good 'half-time' show! The part that I witnessed was about two hours long. Eight bands were in this second half of the program -- there were more high school bands presented in the first part of the Competition.

I am quite impressed by the amount of planning, rehearsing, and professional presentation of these students and leaders, who put it all together. My words are not enough to describe the excitement and emotions that are produced among the spectators. I was quite moved by what I saw.

My step-granddaughter Veronica plays flute in the DeSoto High School Band, which won many awards at the end of the day. Congratulations, Veronica, on your wonderful high school band! You all are great instrumentalists. Practicing does pay off!
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My Birthday Weekend was simply the tops! I was invited on last Sunday to my son Bill's home for a double birthday celebration, someone else in the family has an October birthday, and we all had a lovely time. The Birthday Dinner was planned by my granddaughter Melanie. She did have a bit of help in preparation. It was such a delicious dinner. Unusual fare, and just wonderful.

Then the birthday cake came in from the kitchen, and we two celebrants had to blow out our candles. Yes, indeed, we made a wish, and we got them all out together, not a one stayed lit. So we will get our wishes! The cake was a gluten-free cake and it was so tasty. Then cards and gifts were opened, which is always a lot of fun.

My Birthday Gift was presented to me on last Saturday evening - a week ago. Bill and Jennifer came over to pick me up so we could go to see my grandson Tim play and sing solo all of the songs he has written. We were very pleased with his performance, by the way. It was his first solo gig. This event felt special to me because it was on my Birthday Weekend.

The gift was presented to me just before we left the house. It was dark, and I had locked the door to be ready to jump into their vehicle and we'd be on our way. BUT Bill and Jen stalled and asked if they could come in and see something they had been talking about. All right, it's okay with me, so I opened the door, and we went into the far end of the house. At least Jen and I did so. Bill suddenly disappeared, and after I was showing Jen what she wanted to see, Bill came into the room where we were, and said that we had better get going. All right again...

We headed for the front door again, I was locking it, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, some motion in the darkness on my front lawn. Hmmmm. Then I saw it again, uh, oh, and saw what the moving balloons were doing, they were trying to get away from the item they were attached to. OH, MY GOSH,
I couldn't believe my eyes! They were attached to a small concrete bench a bit over two feet long, just my size; it was curved just a little, so lovely and perfect!

The oohs and ahhs and my little squeals, were nothing to what I was really feeling inside. Such a great and perfect gift! Well, we had to take a few pictures of it, and me sitting on it, and finally we were settled down enough to get going on our little trip to see Tim.
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On Monday, there were quite a few email Birthday Greetings, and several phone calls from my family and friends. My Birthday High was well in gear. Then around 2:30 pm, the local florist phoned and asked if I'd still be home in a little while, as he had something for me. I said YES, excitedly. He came not long after, and presented a huge ORANGE BOUQUET, with four orange Bird of Paradise flowers, several orange lilies, and two large orange yarrow blossoms. Lots of greenery in the bouquet, but I was quite impressed with the ORANGE flowers, as I love the color orange, and October for me is "Orange October."

You needn't ask if I was still on my Birthday High, I most certainly was, until I fell asleep that night. What a great weekend! This has been one of my very best birthdays ever. Thank you, everyone who made this possible. I appreciate all the cards, letters, emails, and phone calls, too.

I think I'm down off that Birthday High.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Coal town reminiscences; baloney sandwiches; Kool-Aid popsicles.

For part of my childhood, from about age four or five, to my ninth year, we lived in the coal town of Larksville, at its edge. We neighborhood kids always had friends because almost every family had children. I remember Dorothy, Mildred, Connie, Dolores, Elaine...

We would play the games or pastimes appropriate to our ages, and we'd always come home covered with the grime that kids in coal towns usually have on them. The fine coal dust sifts down on our porches, the porch railing, the steps leading down to the ground, the unpaved streets, our little wagons and other pull-toys, our clothing, and ourselves.

Sometimes we played in the dirt, making little roads with our fingers, or piling up the soil/dirt to make little hills. We would also walk along the culm bank up the hill from our school, and you could call that real grime, because a culm bank is the residual from coal mining. Sometimes they're small, sometimes they're like little mountains.

Sometimes we were asked by our parents to go to the culm bank and try to find a few pieces of coal for our coal stove. One of my little girlfriends lived right next to a culm bank, and we would play on her porch, and under her porch behind the lattice-work with our little shovels, or our dollies, or pretending to hide. We'd also put on a little show, the two of us, one of us sitting on their porch swing, as the audience, and the other a few feet away, singing, or reciting a poem we learned in school, or acting out a bit of something, like cooking, or reading a book, or writing on an imaginary blackboard.

Another girlfriend and I would color to our heart's content on the porch, or in the house, and it was usually a coloring book with line drawings. I don't remember ourselves drawing pictures to color. It was always a coloring book. Such beloved coloring pages! One of my very favorites was a little house with flowers in the front of the house, a fence, and a gate. The flowers were quite often hollyhocks, as they were very popular in those days. I still LOVE fences and gates!

During those years, we moved at least three times that I know of. While we lived in the last place, I was getting to the age of being able to go to the mid-block store for my mom or dad, in the evening. One that I remember was probably not even an eighth of a mile from our back door to her front door. There was an evening that I went to the store to get some baloney for my dad's lunch for the early morning departure to work at the nearby coal mine. I had the flashlight in my hand since it was dark already, and in our dirt alley to the dirt street, I was bending down with the light shining onto the ground, very close. I don't know what I was doing that for, maybe to see all the tiny pebbles and gravel, or just because... and a woman going by said, "What are you looking for? Night walkers?"

Night walkers are earthworms that the fishermen use as bait when they go fishing. Many of the men liked to go fishing on their time off from work. If it had rained, you might find earthworms crawling all over the alley, but usually one looks for night walkers in the grass or near the grass.

I came home with the baloney, and then I suppose I had to get ready for bed and say nighty-night. Everyone in those days liked baloney sandwiches. Sometimes the baloney was ground up and mixed with some pickle relish and mayonnaise, and it was a real favorite. Oooohh, I shouldn't have mentioned that, now I'm going to crave some of that baloney mix. Sometimes the housewife would fry the baloney  in the frying pan and maybe have some potatoes to cook to go along with it. To fry a slice of baloney, you have to put a little cut in about four places along the outside of the circular slice, to prevent it from curling up.

On another street, Chestnut Street, there was a lady who ran a small grocery/candy store. She would make some Kool-Aid and fill the metal ice cube trays with the very popular beverage. Each ice cube would have a wooden popsicle stick put in it, and into the freezer they'd go. You could buy one of those luscious Kool-Aid popsicles for a penny. We would go to the store on a very warm day with our pennies, and get a popsicle for each of us. You'd suck on one corner, and the color would slowly disappear from that corner as you melted it in your mouth. Then on to the next corner. Such a wonderful treat for just a penny.

In our first house, we had a small apartment, and I think I may have been around four. My brother is a year and a half younger than I. He had locked himself in the bathroom. You know how children like to play with doorknobs. I think my aunt and uncle were living in the same house for a time, and all of the grown-ups were trying to figure out how to tell him to unlock the door, but apparently he was too young to do that. We had been having breakfast or lunch, and I remember how I brought his plate with a fried egg on it, wanting desperately for the grown-ups to give it to him. I don't know how they got him out of there, if they had to remove the hinges, or if someone located a key that would work. I wonder if he had thrown the key out the window? or down the toilet?

There was another incident involving my brother. At our second place, he made friends with Georgie, and they spent a lot of time together, with wagons, and doing lots of things that boys four to six do. He and Georgie were good buddies. Almost. For some reason, Georgie hit him in the forehead with a metal dustpan. The wound bled. Our mom took my baby brother into our house and fixed it up and my brother said vehemently, "I'm never going to play with him again!" The very next day, he and Georgie were good buddies again.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

The Whole Wide World; Time; I'm happy.

An hour already spent on my computer! as if I didn't have anything other than this to do today. I have a list 'yay-long' of things to do. I haven't even eaten my breakfast yet, and I'm beginning to be peckish. The British like to say that, don't they? I like to hear the Brits speak, and I like British movies.

I am going through a couple of boxes today, it is slow but sure, and there are surprises at finding something whimsical and long-lost; disappointments in finding that beautiful little figurine that I like so much, broken. Moving so many times does cause breakage and chips and shards.

My collection of calendars is growing by leaps (leap years) and bounds, no, that doesn't fit here; or maybe it does -- I'm bound to collect calendars because I keep thinking of Time. Time seems to be going much faster than it was passing just a few years ago. I thought it was going too fast then, but it's going much faster and faster as I get older. My birthday is this month, and I cannot believe that I'm THAT OLD already!

I found a couple of calendars that I can use right now, because time seems to repeat itself. The present calendar I have tacked up is 1983, with all the months in sync with the current year's, 2011. There are a couple of other calendars with the same synchronization, but I can't remember which ones.

I spend some time clipping out recipes from magazines, when I could be doing something much more important. Why do we do things like this? At the moment we are engaging ourselves with something so mundane, we sometimes think, "Why am I doing this? I should be reading some more in that interesting book I started to read last week!" Do we do this to give our brains a bit of a rest, as people sometimes sit down to work on that jigsaw puzzle on the table? Things like that do give our brains a rest; we busy people need these little breaks.

Or do we do it because we are compulsive-obsessive? I like to peruse recipes old and new, and maybe THAT gives my brain a chance to relax. 'T is a mystery, as I like to say.

There are some old family photographs in a drawer that I could be putting in order and writing the names of people on them, and I spend time clipping out recipes???

There is the Whole Wide World to keep us busy. Maybe I shall widen my blinders and see what else there is to study, look at, think about, and sustain me.

This morning I looked on Facebook and the person had mentioned The Actors Circle on YouTube. I listened to that, and realized that I could be watching clips of that beloved TV show, that I had watched for several years. I don't get TV here yet, and that would be so much entertainment for me.

That brought on another thought: There is so much available out there in cyberland, that I don't even know about yet. I am not terribly computer-savvy, and I get into a rut sometimes, just doing the same routine when I get on the computer.

I am coming to the conclusion that I am very happy to be my own boss about doing the things I like to do, when I want to do them. There is so much to sift through yet, here in my new abode, and who knows if I'll ever have the time to do everything I want to? I'm taking it slow and easy, because age is creeping up on me, and I shall accept whatever Heaven allows. Whatever is left of my things to go through, my family will have to attend to that.

It is my hope that they will do it carefully and not just throw things in the trash cart, because there is the chance they might find some money or important paper somewhere! Remember how I was going through some small pile of stuff and found a small bank envelope, and my thought was, wow, if there'd be some money in here, but I didn't even complete that thought when THERE IT WAS! a twenty-dollar bill that I had forgotten.

Well, I'll pause here and eat my breakfast of cream of buckwheat while listening to Mozart...  There, the cream of buckwheat was tasty, and satisfying.

I'm a Libra.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Cheesecloth; berries and grapes; door-to-door.

When I was growing up, my mother would make a special Easter cheese called 'cirek' (tseer-ek and roll your 'r'), of milk and eggs by simmering milk and stirring into it beaten eggs. When it was cooked, she would pour it into a large piece of cheesecloth laid over a large bowl, and she would then tie up the cheesecloth tightly around the thickened liquid, and would hang it up over the bowl to drain. It would drain and solidify for about two hours. Then it would be refrigerated until Easter dinner time. The cheese would be unwrapped and sliced, to serve.

The recipe is as follows: Bring ONE QUART OF MILK to a boil in a saucepan. Gradually stir in FIFTEEN EGGS, slightly beaten. Cook over low heat until mixture starts to thicken and form curds, about seven minutes. Add seasonings of SALT and WHITE PEPPER, and one teaspoon of SUGAR, stirring constantly to avoid scorching. Pour the mixture into a large piece of cheesecloth laid over a large bowl. Gather up the cheesecloth to tie it tightly with a string, to enclose the thickened liquid. Hang it up to drain over the bowl for about two hours or until the cheese is set. Refrigerate until serving time.
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Another use for cheesecloth is to drain the juices out of cooked berries and grapes. There were many wild grapes that grew on the little farm we had, and so many wild blackberries and raspberries. We made preserves, jams, and jellies with the berries and/or the grapes. Canning the berries and grapes also consumed much of our time in the summer and autumn. I can still see the cheesecloth used for this purpose in stained condition, in my mind's eye. Those jars of canned berries, grapes, and other fruits were truly such a pleasure in the winter time.

I was in my pre-adolescent years when I helped Mom to sell blackberries door-to-door in one of the local larger towns. I never liked being a sales person, but Mom reveled in selling the berries. Times were poor then, and it was a necessity.

We would pick blackberries and get many in no time at all, because there were many bushes in the wooded land that would be absolutely loaded with berries. I didn't like to encounter any spiders or their webs, and I was so afraid of snakes. There was one massive bush of blackberries that were almost an inch and a half in length, plump, deep deep black, shiny, and so very delicious. I do believe that it was a certain variety of blackberry. Now, those blackberries would be the ones to pick if you were in a hurry to fill your quart basket!

We usually used buckets to put the berries in, but now and then we would use a quart basket. There were also black raspberries that we had there, called black caps. My, oh, my, were they ever good! There is nothing quite like a black cap. There were some red raspberries that we had planted in the field next to our dirt driveway leading up to the barn.

There were also gooseberries up on the side hill in the open pasture, that were quite delicious. I would really like to see a few gooseberries bushes now; I wonder where I could find them. Mom and Dad also planted a couple of currant bushes, too.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

A grass named after me; pulling weedy grass; another candy find.

In one of the boxes I found an informing book on important weeds, published in 1951. I browsed through it quite a while the other evening, and enjoyed it; very informing. But it is in black-and-white, no color to show what the shade of green is, nor the color of the flowers it produces, if any.

It was on the table when Bill and Tim came to visit last evening. Bill picked it up and browsed a bit. Suddenly he said, "There's a weed here named after you!" I looked, and sure enough, there it is, but I think they spelled it a bit wrong. Its Latin name is Agropyron repens, the synonym is Triticum repens. The weed also has many other English names, such as Couch-grass, Quitch-grass, Twitch-grass, Witch-grass (in parts of Vermont and adjacent regions). These names could be used to make an interesting poem...

It belongs to the Family Poaceae (Gramineae), Grass Family. Aren't you proud of me? I'm famous...
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Late this afternoon, I went out to my Oval Garden to pull some of those horrendous Bermuda Grass roots, which are very very tough, and hard to pull out. The runners are so long, longer than two feet and usually break off underground. I took my new knee protector mat and it was much better than kneeling on the lawn. I worked at pulling those roots for about 20-23 minutes, a record. There are many more to pull, which will take another three or four sessions.

I didn't read at all last night, because I was posting, and I would like very much to spend some time with my current book this evening.

The people next door took a lot of their things out of their house to Olive Branch about twenty minutes from here, to their new home. Naturally, I wonder who will be moving in next door?

For my dinner early this evening, I made some gluten-free pancakes. And I ate them all! In one sitting! Sometimes a meal of pancakes is very comforting, don't you think?

I was looking through a medium-size box this afternoon, and found another stash of about ten pieces of wrapped candy. In the trash it goes! But I also found several quarters, and if I am really craving candy, I can get some! I think I was not as crazy about candy as I once was, that's why it was among other things in that box.

My grandchildren call me Grannamae.

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

A full day, a full tummy, and a surprise or two.

My son Bill took me to church with him this morning, for the funeral of the very aged father-in-law of Father Don. I had never been to an Orthodox funeral and I am glad I attended. It was very beautiful and quite moving. Near the end of the services, when many people went to the casket to say their farewells, and the family went up lastly, it was getting very sad for me. So many of my adult relatives have died, including my parents, and I was thinking of them, and I could feel the pain of the gentleman's family. There were many damp eyes.

We went in the caravan of cars to the cemetery. That was also very moving, with the choir singing and prayers being said. Many of the people sprinkle soil onto the coffin after it was lowered. Afterwards, the people were invited to go back to the church for a "Mercy Dinner" of delicious potluck offerings. The food was quite fit for a king, as so many people cook so well. Although everyone didn't choose from every dish, our plates were well-rounded with very tasty things. I have always liked Potluck dinners or suppers, because I get to taste various ways of cooking. I enjoy talking about food, too.

Before we went back to the church, though, Bill and I took a little side-trip on the cemetery grounds to visit the Crystal Cave, containing several dioramas of Christ's life. The work was so beautiful, and I wouldn't mind going again to see it.

After Bill brought me back home, I began some going through a few boxes from storage. Sometimes when we are moving, we don't take a lot of time deciding what to pack and what not to pack.  This afternoon I found a small baggie with an assortment of wrapped candies, with a card attached saying, "Thank you for volunteering in 2002". Now, let's see, 2011 minus 2002, that's NINE years. Okay, into the garbage. Yup, too old... I wonder why the candy wasn't consumed at that time; oh, well...

I was working hard for a couple of hours, finding broken tumblers and dishes, sorting things. Fatigue was setting in, so I quit for the day. The man next door is moving out, and he and his buddy were loading a pickup truck with large appliances. Hearing the truck door slam, I thought they were going to leave. Suddenly my doorbell rang. I thought he was coming to say for some reason, that he was leaving and would want me to watch for something.

But no! it was my grandson Tim at my door. What a grand surprise that was! And son Bill was right behind him. They had to go to Lowe's for some item to do a repair at their house, and brought me a kneeling pad and gloves to use when I'm weeding my little Oval Garden. How delightful for them to come unannounced! They couldn't phone me to let me know, because my cell phone had been left in Bill's vehicle when we got to the church for the funeral and we forgot that it was there when Bill brought me home. It's a long story, as you can tell.

They moved some heavy boxes for me, and broke down the beat-up and mangled boxes that were piled up for Trash Day. We had a good time talking for a while, too, as Tim was telling us about Jerome, AZ,
where he had visited on his trip to help Uncle Gerry and Aunt Joyce in their move from Sedona, AZ, to Ojai, CA. The stones and gems in quaint Jerome, hiking around red rocks in fascinating Sedona, and driving a truck for the first time made for a good story.

Several weeks ago, I found in one of those many boxes, two little packages approximately 4"by 2" in Christmas wrapping. They each had the letter 'T' on them. Apparently I had them ready quite some years ago to give to Tim for a Christmas present. I have no idea why they were not his already, while he was a child. When I found them I vowed to myself that I would give them to him. It finally happened this evening, which was quite a surprise to all of us. They are two Matchbox vehicles, which he still likes, as we all do. So Tim has his Christmas present from 19?? at last!

One more item: This evening I phoned my one-year-older-than-I Uncle Al and his wife Aunt Anna Mae,  to wish them a Happy Anniversary today. Aunt Anna Mae answered the phone and she was quite pleased that I phoned to wish them a wonderful day. She and I get such a kick out of saying, "Hello, Anna Mae, this is Anna Mae."

She informed me that they had gone out to the Apple Festival with Uncle Bernie and Pat, and then the four of them went for dinner together. At the festival, Anna Mae met someone named Anna Mae. It isn't often that we encounter another woman whose name is Anna Mae.

I then told her about the time in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when I parked my car, and was walking on the sidewalk in front of Mercy Hospital, to go in to visit someone abed. All of a sudden, as I was walking, getting closer to the door, someone yelled out, "Anna Mae, where are you going?" I was quite stunned, as I didn't see anyone looking at me to ask me that question. She said something again and I looked up, to an open window on the second floor. Then I noticed that a car was moving slowly along the street not too many feet from where I was standing. The woman on the second floor was asking the woman in that car, "Anna Mae, where are you going?" and they began to chat for a minute or two.

I just couldn't believe that coincidence, that the woman upstairs would call another woman Anna Mae while I was right there at that particular moment! I said to the woman upstairs, that I, too, was an Anna Mae.

Well, I talked then with Uncle Al for a minute or two, and hung up the phone. As I hung up, I could hear on my radio that a man was singing a song to his girlfriend, as the words were indicating. My ears perked up when I thought I heard something familiar. It goes like this:
"You, You, You, are my Pride and Joy, Anna Mae, Anna Mae, Anna Mae; my Pride and Joy, You, You, You, You, Anna Mae, Anna Mae, Anna Mae." Now I've got to find out who the singer is, and when was the song composed? This song was on the radio as Aunt Anna Mae and I (Anna Mae)
were talking about Anna Mae's.

And so to bed...

I'll see you at the Corner Post...