Beware Big Company Lies!

In July 2004, I was preparing dinner at my kitchen counter in front of my kitchen window. On the left side of my counter I had placed my electric frying pan and was preparing to cook a chicken dinner. I had purchased a package of McCormick Country Chicken sauce mix, which you must follow the directions on the package to be successful. In stirring the mixture I guess I was a little too vigorous doing so because some of the sauce spattered up onto my kitchen curtains. I did not think too much about it, but did wipe off what I could at the time and thought if it stained I could wash them later. That is the only thing I was preparing at that particular place. This is important to remember. After a while, I happened to glance up at my curtains and the color was bleached out where the sauce had landed. I am not kidding you!! The chicken sauce bleached my curtains. I had just purchased them a few weeks before and had paid $35.00 for them on sale. What would you have done? I did what I thought was the right thing to do and contacted the McCormick company. I told the lady, who was the one answering my call, about my problem and she practically told me I was nuts, but if I would be so kind as to send the empty package to her they would run a test on it to see if there was anything that they deemed responsible. Well, that was a dumb thing to do as there went my evidence, but I had already mailed it before I had given it some thought. My recourse was to high tail it to the grocery store to get another package and test it on another piece of colored material. It was only a day or two between times, but SURPRISE!! It had been pulled off the shelf. I immediately went to three other stores to find there was none on their shelves either. All other McCormick sauces were there, but not the Country Herb Chicken Sauce. All of them had been pulled from the shelves. What would you think? Of course they contacted me and said they had ran a lot of tests and found nothing to be wrong, and I must have spilled something else on my curtains besides the chicken sauce. Remember, I told you there was nothing else I was preparing in that space. The purpose of this blog is to tell you to NEVER be stupid like I was and get rid of your evidence that would prove your case. I was not asking for a huge settlement from them. I only wanted back the $35.00 I had spent on my curtains, which I had to replace myself. I am on a fixed income and extras like that, are sometimes an extravagance. Be wiser than me my friend. I am adding the letter I sent to the McCormick Company so you can see I was not trying to get more than what was coming to me. That was in 2004 and it still bugs me that a large company like that, can be so deceitful, untrustworthy, and irresponsible. O.K. Cheap too!
July 7,2004
Attention Jodi Davis:
McCormick & Co.
211 Shilling Circle
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21031
Dear Ms. Davis;
Enclosed please find the Country Herb Chicken sauce blend empty packet that you requested. If you need the portion of the curtain that was damaged, I will be happy to send it along also. I appreciate all the help you are giving me on this. I realize it is not an earth-shaking incident, but it is stressful for me when I have to replace something at my own expense, which is not my fault. Again thank you for any future helps you might give me.
Sincerely,

A Hunting We Will Go...Or Not!

When I first married my husband, Bob, he wanted me to go wherever he went. That meant I must accompany him on his hunting trip to Reno. I was not required to carry a gun (whew!) or expected to shoot anything. I do not think I could have done that anyhow because of my love of animals. I was not too happy knowing he loved to hunt, but knowing he came from a family who lived on a farm, and his father taught his boys to hunt, I knew it would be hard at this point to get him to not love the sport. Anyway, off we went to Reno. My first challenge in this adventure, was to get up a very steep hill, because that was where the deer would probably be.I started climbing behind him, but was not doing too good or making too much headway. "Grab a hold of me" was my instructions from Bob. "Grab a hold how?" was my thought. I needed my hands to grab a hold of this huge mound I was trying to get up. I decided on linking my fingers into the backside of his jeans. Great idea. He scrambled up that hill like he was born to it, and I was pulled along like I was flying. No sooner did we land on top than I hear "bang, bang, zing, zing!" "Hit the ground," Bob says. "Get down and stay down!" I see a pretty doe leaping fast across the hills. She was scared to death and running for her life. I knew then, I did not like this. When everything was finally quiet, Bob tells me some hunters are crazy and shoot at anything that is moving. They do not wait to see if it has horns or not, or if it is human. How sad! We scoured the hills, or at least Bob did. I hunkered down by a tree and waited for him to do his thing and come back to get me. He returned empty handed. (Thank you Lord).
We went back down the hill, I slid most of the way, and were about to cross this field where Bob thought there might be something. The green growth was quite high and Bob went ahead of me and told me to be careful and just step where he stepped. So I did. At least I thought I was doing that. I watched his footsteps fall and stepped where I thought his foot had been. He was doing just fine and must have had eyes of an eagle because nothing happened to him, while I stepped and oops! My foot went deep into the ground and up to my knee in water. I was cold, tired, nearly shot at, and wet! I wanted to go home, and so we did. I never wanted to go hunting again. However, I did. It was a scary adventure as well and it ended my hunting days forever. Bob took the boys on an outing only once and Brent fell into a creek carrying the rifle over his head, and Cary was more interested in finding fossils and old skeletons of animals. Bob went back to hunting with his buddies and let us happily stay at home, warm and cozy!

Where's The Fire?

Bob held some sort of office in the local lumberman’s union. It was one of those offices where your fellow workers vote you in to air all their grievances, which they do not want to do themselves. Anyway it made him feel good to be the one chosen. It was not an office for the union itself. Still, it was important, as he got to sit in on all the meetings and speak for his guys. This one time there was to be a meeting held in the state capital of Sacramento, California. Wives were also invited and all their expenses paid. Also an overnight stay in a very nice hotel and a dinner for all those invited. We also got to glimpse a couple of celebrities walking through the lobby. Marsha Wallace is one name that comes to mind. She was on the Bob Newhart show. All in all it was a very nice hotel where one should behave themselves and act like any human being would be expected to act. Well, my Bob was certainly a human being and most of the time he acted like he was supposed to do, but he had an awful curiosity wanting to know just how things worked, or if signs he saw, really meant what they said. He therefore had an uncontrollable urge to test them out. You know the kind of people I am talking about. They are the ones that have to touch something that says, “Wet paint. Do not touch!” or a sign that says, “Closed for the day.” That person has to try the doorknob. Things like that. Well here we are in this nice hotel, and after checking into our room, we were ready to go down to the lobby. Waiting for the elevator to come and take us down, Bob spots the little glass enclosed handle that says, “Pull only in case of fire!” He says, “I wonder what would happen if I pulled that?” I tell him, “DON”T YOU DARE! Everyone would think there was a fire and panic would reign. Behave yourself and curb your curiosity.” That was it for a while. Everything was fine until the next day when I opted to stay in the room, while Bob was to attend a meeting. I had forgotten about his questioning me the day before so I was not expecting what happened next. Suddenly, I heard the fire alarm go off and warnings being announced over a loud speaker. I opened the door to see Bob running down the hall towards our room, looking like a scared little boy child, running to the safety of mama! I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him inside. “What have you done?” I asked him. He sheepishly said, “I wanted to see what would happen, but did not expect this.” “What in the world DID you expect?” I questioned. I got a shrug. There was a lot of commotion outside in the hall, but we waited quietly until all the sound was gone and then I escorted him down to the lobby and pointed him toward his meeting place. People were talking about someone having set off the alarm, but we acted innocent as we possibly could. He always arrived early to appointments, so he was not late for his meeting. I do not think this experience stopped his curiosity, but it slowed it down for a while. My Bob was a sweet, gentle, loving person, but had a flaw in this one part of his personality. Curiosity just got the better of him. However it had one good thing about it. It kept me on my toes!

Up On The Roof Top

Christmas 2009 is over, but I have a Christmas story that is lingering in my mind. It is a memory that makes me smile, and I would like to think you are going to enjoy it also. I am not exactly sure what year it was, but it seems to me that it was in 1959. It really is not that important to the story except for the age of my son who was a major player in the story. I believe he was thirteen years old at the time. He was (and still is) a creator of things. His imagination always works over time to create great pieces of art. This thirteen-year-old boy had decided he wanted to put a rocket on the roof with Santa riding it skyward. That period of time was rocket and space oriented, and what better way to send Santa off on his trip than by the way of a flying rocket ship? First off he had to make a rocket, and his mind was working hard on that image. The body he found in the garage in the form of an old garbage can. There was a hole in the bottom, which two pieces of stove pipe that he found, fit perfectly after some shoving and pushing. These became the exhausts. He now needed a nose cone. My husband worked in a lumberyard and we had a fireplace so it was easy to find lumber lying around in the garage. Three pieces of plywood worked fine when made into a triangle and nailed together, they formed a nose cone. From the back of the exhaust there had to be some fire to get it up into the air. That took a bit of thinking. However it was Christmas time and there were all sorts of things to hang for decorations, so these little pieces of wire covered with red paper and glittery stuff were just the right thing to work on a rocket. Actually they were for making Christmas arrangements for your holiday table. Wow! They really worked well on a rocket also. Paintbrushes came out to make it look more authentic and real. The next step was to get it up on the roof. With a little team effort from all of us, up it went. My husband became as enthused with the project as our son and so wires and rope and whatever was needed, put the rocket in place. Next the main character, which was Santa, had to be created and put into place. Everyone’s closet was raided and clothes were borrowed for good old Saint Nick to be created. A red pair of my slacks, a hooded sweat shirt from someone else, and a lot of old clothes and whatever we could find to stuff into the pants and sweat shirt to give Santa a shape. Voila! Santa came to life. A molded plastic Santa facemask went into the hood to complete the jolly old fellow. Now he had to be mounted on the rocket. Once there and positioned, he was supposed to be upright and ready to take off, but NO! The nice old guy just slumped down like a stack of old clothes in a laundry basket. This was not working at all. Someone had to go down off the roof and find Santa a backbone. A nice long stick and some twine worked well and he finally was sitting up straight. All that was left to do was to put a spotlight on him so he could be seen ready for his takeoff. That being done, everyone was delighted with the efforts and the neighbors were even agreeable that Santa looked pretty good. There he sat “up on the house top,” for a few days anyway, until one day came when the wind decided he should take a tumble. A girlfriend was visiting me at the time and we were the only ones available to get Santa back up where he belonged. No problem! We were very capable women and what could be so hard about doing that? Out came the ladder, on went our jackets, and up we went to rescue the old boy! It actually was not that hard although it took us a while, but much to our dismay, it started to rain. Not to be deterred we continued our rescue attempt until we were satisfied he would remain upright from now on. Finished, we were ready to descend to safer ground. One big problem arose which we had not anticipated. Going up the ladder was easy. Going down the ladder, not so easy. Neither she nor I felt safe enough to turn ourselves around, make our feet find the rungs, and back down the ladder. We were both scared to death. These two brave women who knew no fear, and felt confident in fixing the problem, were stuck on the roof with the rain pouring down. Hours later, we were still sitting there, drenched to the skin, when my husband came home from his work place, to see two women sitting on the roof top in the rain. It was not easy explaining it to him, but what a sweetheart he was to climb up, give encouragement and direction, to help us down. Still scared, we put our trust in him, and one foot at a time he directed our feet to the first rung and then the next. Feeling solid and firm footing after the second foot went onto a rung, the rest was a snap and the trip down the ladder was fast. A big hug to our savior was natural and tears came easy after our rescue. Tired and cold we quickly went into the house for comfort and repairs to ourselves. Our son was discouraged from getting any more great ideas for rooftops, and we have since encouraged him to give his ideas to a strong firm footing on the ground. That he has done and even got a mention in our local newspaper when he covered our entire house with Santa’s palace. To this day, he is still creating things, but it has been directed now to the creation of miniatures, and he holds an office in the National Association Of Miniature Enthusiasts.

Bobby Joe and Me

When I first met him we were in a honky tonk western bar and dance hall. I saw him dancing with some girl and thought, “Boy would I like to dance with him!” He was dancing the jitter- bug, or swing, as some people call it, but there he was, dancing with, probably his girl friend. Anyway I was with someone also and that fixes that! Then the dance ended and he took her back to her seat and he returned to his table where two other guys sat. Oh! He was not with a date. How great is that? But wait, I am with a date, so how do I get around this? Well happy days! My date excused himself to go to the restroom. As soon as the music started again, up I got and trotted over to his table and boldly said, “Would you dance with me?” He looked up, rather surprised and said, “I don’t know if you can follow me or not. I am from New York and I do the “Eastern Swing.” “So?” I thought to myself, but sweetly said, I think I can, but do you want to try? He did not look too happy, but obliged me and we got on the floor to dance. When it ended he said, “that was great, you surprised me. A lot of girls can’t do New York.” Well, I am not a lot of girls, but I did not tell him that. My date came back and said, ”I see you were dancing with Lucky.” I said, “Oh, do you know him?” It was a small place and I guess most everybody knew everyone else. Days later I went back there with a girl friend after work and he was sitting at the end of the bar with some guy. We acknowledge each other, and the jukebox was playing so I again asked him to dance. He declined, saying, “I just got off work and my clothes are dirty and I probably do not smell so good, but can I take a rain check?” That was that until quite some time later. I had talked my two sisters and their husbands into taking me there. This time it was he who came and asked me to dance. It was a slow piece titled “The Twelfth of Never.” This later became “our song” through many years. I was working as a waitress at the Santa Rosa Hotel. One day he just shows up for a cup of coffee. He was excited to show me a Christmas present he had received from the bar. It was a small thin wallet type thing with the bar’s advertisement on it. Oh my gosh, I felt so awful that this was all he was going to get for Christmas and he was so tickled with it. His family was back East and I guess they were not givers or else they did not know his address or whatever. Anyway he was happy so I went along with it and said it was great. He asked for my phone number and also if I would accept a date with him, which I did. He never showed up! After a reasonable time I received a call from someone else I knew wanting to know if I wanted to go to dinner. Yep! I did! We had finished dinner and were back at my house, just sitting and chatting when the phone rang. Good golly miss Molly, it was him. He was all upset and apologetic saying he had lost my phone number and it took him forever to find what he had done with it. He was wondering if I could meet him uptown at a very nice place to have a drink. I cannot remember what kind of an excuse I made to get rid of this guy who owned a flower shop and had brought me a lovely bouquet and dined with me in a very lovely place, but I did it, and when he left I ran and got into my car and was off to have a drink with Lucky! I forgot to tell you that he had this nickname attached to him during World War II when he was supposed to go out on a ship that was sunk by the Japanese, but his last name began with a “Y” and he was too far down the list to get called. Anyway, we met and snuggled ourselves into a booth to talk. He was thirty-one and had never been married. He said he had never met the right girl. I was thirty-five and had been married and had two children. He seemed to be so smitten with me that I said to him, “I bet you would marry me right now if you could.” He said, “Yes, I would. Let’s go get married tonight.” Well we both were excited and headed for home to make plans. It was late at night so we decided to start in the morning and go to Reno. He insisted on sleeping on the couch while I went to my bedroom and bed…alone. I later asked him how come he had not made a pass at me and he said, ”Because I was afraid you would change your mind if I did.” What a guy! Well next morning arrived and a new day dawned and my head became screwed on correctly. Good sense started replacing all that excitement and thoughtless planning that had entered my head last night. I cuddled up next to him on the couch and said, “I can’t marry you, not like this. I do not even know if I love you!” He hates it when I tell this, but tears came to his eyes and he said, ”I knew it. All my life, I have never gotten anything I really wanted.” Well, I tried talking sense to him, but he was so hurt and I am such a ninny to feel sorry for people that I said, “O.K. we’ll do it.” I got a sitter for my boys, and in my old Buick convertible, which we filled up with gas and put anti freeze in,(it was January and snowing in Reno) we took off. Of all the dumb, absolutely, ridiculous decisions I have ever made, this was at the top of the list! One date, and I marry the guy?? Turned out to be one of the smartest moves I ever made. This guy was a jewel, and I was married to him for forty-two years. He adopted both my boys and they adored him. In all those forty-two years, he never missed a day saying he loved me. On our first Christmas I wanted to make it something special for him. I found the old wallet from the bar that he had tucked away in his dresser drawer. I wrapped it up so beautifully and put a note in it telling him this Christmas was going to be different for him.
He said he would like it if I worked three more months and then quit my job to stay home and be a mom to my boys and a wife waiting for him to come home. No problem there. I never worked outside the home again except for doing home parties with a girl friend. I am a hobby person so I did a lot of homemade items and held garage sales for myself and six to eight other girls. I got up every morning at 5:A.M. to fix his breakfast and get him off to work. I did this until he said I should not get up anymore, as he was not hungry that early. By the time he got to the town where he worked he would stop and have a bite with some of the guys before going on in. At the lumber yard where he worked, his job was on the green chain. That is one of the hardest jobs in the mill. They refer to it as pulling the green chain. He was always telling me he wished he could get promoted to one of the big saws. I asked him why he did not try to get one of those jobs. His answer was that in order to do that you had to know arithmetic. Fractions to be exact, and he did not know how to do fractions. He had not finished school. I told him if he would bring home some pieces of lumber and the paper work that went with it, I would teach him fractions. Well, he did just exactly that and we set up a work table in the garage and went to work learning. He explained to me what the order forms meant and I taught him how to do fractions. He was a very quick learner. Long story short, he ended up being one of the top saw operators, and guys would sometime come to him for answers to their orders. He got so he could figure things in his head without pencil and paper. When Bob retired from his job at the lumber mill, I always had my coffee and paper waiting for me in the morning, and he always wiped down my shower walls for me after I had had my shower. Then he would get a little stool we had, and bring it in front of me where I sat in my chair, put my feet up on his lap, and give me the greatest foot massage. This he did every time. In return I fixed his cocktail for him before dinner and brought his coffee and ice cream to him after dinner. We were a team. If we had a difference of opinion at any time we went to sit on the sofa and without raising our voices or becoming angry, we discussed it until it was settled agreeably. I am so blessed to have had those forty-two wonderful years with my Bobby Joe! What we did was not very smart and I would not advise it for anyone else, but it was a blessing for me!

Ghost or No Ghost!

My new T.V. Guide arrived in the mail today, and I was browsing through it when I came to a page concerning the program "The Ghost Whisperer." While reading it I found out the television program is based on a real life ghost whisperer. Well, the subject has always fascinated me and I don't know if I believe in them or not, but I do have strange things going on in my home that makes me take a second look or thought as to whether I do or not. Before I tell you about a very convincing story that give credence to it all, I must first tell you this. When I first purchased my home some thirty seven years ago, My husband and I would hear someone walking in our hallway at night. There was never anyone there. On getting acquainted with new neighbors the subject came up and they said they had the same experience in their homes as well. They told me they had heard the rumor that many, many years ago , Indians had their homes along this stretch of land. It could possibly be true as this land on which our town sits, was indeed home to an Indian reservation. Well, we learned to live with this nightly walking and it became so familiar that we did not notice it anymore. In fact maybe the ghosts did not come around as often. Recently though, they are back. My husband has passed on and my son came to live with me. He did not hear much of anything at first and then one night he became so upset with what he perceived to be walking up and down the hall that he got out of bed, opened his bedroom door and shouted, "Go away! Go bother someone else and let me get some sleep!" He went back to bed and the walking ceased. He chuckles now about it, but I wonder if he believes in them. Lots of nights, while sitting in my special chair and watching television, I hear footsteps behind me, and I look thinking it is my son going into the garage to his work space. No! No one is there. Just two nights ago when I heard it, I looked, and just in a flash I saw a half see-through figure dart quickly, and then was gone. I am sure it was a figment of my imagination or an unexplained something or other, but I told my son about it anyway. Now here are two very convincing stories that make me think maybe ghosts really do exist. We had just recently lost our beloved dog "Cissy," who always slept on our bed at the foot. One night after we had been in bed for quite some time and were sound asleep, my husband and I felt something jump up on our bed. We both awakened at the same time and came to an upright position together in wonderment. My husband exclaimed in a rather loud voice, "What the heck was that?" After a moment of getting my thoughts together, I calmly said,"That was Cissy jumping up on the bed to be near us." We both looked at each other, accepted the thought and laid back down to go to sleep. True story! Here is the one that really boggles my mind and makes me think long and hard on what is the truth and what is not. It is very hard to try and think up something to justify what it actually was other than a ghost coming to visit. My very dear lady friend was lying in the hospital dying. I was there sitting by her bedside, talking to her,(even though she was in a coma) and brushing her hair back from her face. I could not help but putting my hand on her and lightly brushing my hand back and forth on her forehead. After a while her daughter came in and because it was getting late at night said I should go home and she would call me if there was any change. I felt that she may need some private time with her mom and so I went home. At 2:10 A.M. I was awakened by a soft breeze across my forehead. I sat up in bed, and my husband woke also to ask me what the matter was. I said, "Marilyn just died and came to say goodbye to me." He said, "Are you sure?" (I guess at 2: A.M. you can ask a dumb question like that!). I said, "Yes, she just brushed the hair out of my eyes." It was a soft breeze across my forehead and there were no windows open it the house! The next morning her daughter called to say her mom had passed on and I asked if she knew what time she left and she said, "Yes, a little after two in the morning." Do I believe in ghosts? I still do not know, but I ponder on this a lot and wonder if we will ever know. So many fakers out there that it makes you doubt, but these stories I tell are absolutely the truth and it leaves me wondering.

Just a Suggestion!

What a great invention the computer is and its access to so many things. We can connect with people, we can learn things, we can ask questions and get answers, and the list goes on and on. However, there are people out there who take advantage of this wonderful invention. You can so easily be scammed if you are not aware, and if you do not question some things that come on your screen. You can also be given false information and believe it if you do not take the time and trouble to verify it. Anything that comes up on my screen that does not just sound right or is accusatory of something or someone, or gives me a sad sob story of someone in need, or is angry at the government or politician or anything about our soldiers oversees, I will not accept as truth until I have checked it out on Snopes. I feel it is a terrible injustice to pass on information unless you know beyond a shadow of doubt that it is true. I understand the shock value that comes with these emails and the first inclination to be angry and wanting everyone to know and be warned, but how sad, if it is not true, and that it is being spread through this great newspaper of the world. People are being maligned and scare tactics are being spread and none of it is true. Oh, I know, some facts that arrive are truthful, but the majority are nothing more than hate mail, or someone getting their big laugh over all of us so gullible. Please, folks, just take a moment to verify it before you put someone on a list where they do not belong. Also be careful and aware that you do not fall into a trap yourself where it could cost you financially, or emotionally. Be alert and concerned before clicking on forward. Just something to think about and strictly my own opinion!