SENTIMENTAL SATURDAY

Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99

A Thought for Today

Loving someone without reserve is the highest high of all.

Ann sent this to me and so did Laurel. What a nice start up for a Sentimental Saturday.

ANGELS IN INDIANA

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds.

He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.

And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.

I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.) It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car-or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what.

When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box.

Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

I BELIEVE IN ANGELS! They live next door, around the corner, work in your office, patrol your neighborhood, call you at midnight to hear you laugh and listen to you cry, teach your children, and you see them everyday without even knowing it! Send this to someone you think is an angel.

LITTLE TOWNS & PRETTY PLACES

Kathy writes:

“Dear Rod, A friend sent this to me recently, and I had to laugh—how TRUE many of these ARE. I experienced the fifth one just last week. Wasn’t funny then, but today I can “pass it along!” Laughing again, Kathy”

Sounds pretty good to me Kathy; but then I’ve always thought Ohio was a bit of heaven. And, that includes both Upper & Lower Sandusky.

SMALL TOWN OHIO

You Know You’re Born and Raised in Small-Town Ohio When. . .

During a storm you check the cattle before you check the kids.

You are related to more than half the town.

You can tell the difference between a horse and a cow from a
distance.

Your car breaks down outside of town and news of it gets back to town before you do.

Without thinking, you wave to all oncoming traffic.

You don’t buy all your vegetables at the grocery store.

You don’t put too much effort into hairstyles due to wind and weather.

There’s a tornado warning and the whole town is outside watching for it.

The local gas station sells live bait.

You go to the State Fair for your family vacation.

You get up at 5:30 am and go down to the coffee shop.

You’re on a first name basis with the county sheriff.

When little smokies are something you serve on special occasions.

You have the number of the Co-op on speed dial.

All your radio-preset buttons are country.

You try to find the cheapest room rates when going out of town.

Using the elevator involves a grain truck.

Your mayor is also your garbage hauler, barber, and insurance
salesman.

You know you should listen to the weather forecast before picking out an outfit.

You call the wrong number and talk to the person for an hour anyway.

Your excuse for getting out of school is that the cows got out.

You know cow pies aren’t made of beef.

You wake up when it’s dark and go to bed when it’s still light.

You listen to “Paul Harvey” every day at noon.

You can tell it’s a farmer working late in his field and not a UFO.

Your nearest neighbor is in the next area code.

You know the difference between field corn and sweet corn when they are still on the stalk.

You know the code names for everyone on the CB.

You can eat an ear of corn with no utensils in less than 20 seconds.

You wear your boots to church.

It takes 30 seconds to reach your destination and it’s clear across town.

You can tell the smell of a skunk and the smell of feedlot apart.

The meaning of true love is that you’ll ride in the tractor with him.

You go to Wal-Mart for your Saturday shopping.

Your main drag in town is two blocks long.

You defend the beauty of being able to see the next town which is 20 miles away.

WINTER IS WINTER

This is a cute one from Cindy.

A BEAR WALKS INTO THE ARTIC

One afternoon in the Arctic, a father polar bear and his son polar
bear were sitting in the snow. The son polar bear turned to his
father and asked, “Dad, am I 100% polar bear?”

The father polar bear replied, “Of course, son, you’re 100% polar
bear.”

A few minutes pass, and the son polar bear turns to his father again and says, “Dad, tell me the truth. I can take it. Am I 100% polar bear? No brown bear or panda bear or grizzly bear?”

The father polar bear replies, “Son, I’m 100% polar bear, your
mother is 100% polar bear, so you are definitely 100% polar bear.”

A few more minutes pass, and the son polar bear AGAIN turns to his father and says, “Dad, don’t think your sparing my feelings if it’s not true. I gotta know – am I 100% polar bear?”

The father polar bear was distressed by this continued questioning and asked his son, “Why do you keep asking if you’re 100% polar bear?”

“Because I’m freezing!”

YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART

Star girl writes:

“This is sentimental Saturday stuff but also quite clever… and I hadn’t seen it before…don’t know if you have, but you certainly haven’t printed it.“

I hadn’t seen it before, but it’s certainly worth printing.

HEART INSTALLATION

Customer: I’m not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first?

CS Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART ma’am?

Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running?

CS Rep: What programs are running ma’am?

Customer: Let me see…. I have PASTHURT.EXE, LOWESTEEM.EXE, GRUDGE.EXE, and RESENTMENT.COM
running right now.

CS Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase
PASTHURT.EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOWESTEEM.EXE with a module of its own called HIGHESTEEM.EXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ma’am?

Customer: I don’t know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?

CS Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS.EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM have been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, I’m done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal?

CS Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message?

Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed?

CS Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEART’s in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops. I have an error message already. What should I do?

CS Rep: What does the message say?

Customer: It says, “ERROR 412 – PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS.” What does that mean?

CS Rep: Don’t worry ma’am, that’s a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to “LOVE” your own machine before it can “LOVE” others.

Customer: So what should I do?

CS Rep: Can you find the directory called “SELF-ACCEPTANCE”?

Customer: Yes, I have it.

CS Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this.

Customer: Thank you.

CS Rep: You’re welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the “MYHEART” directory: FORGIVESELF.DOC, SELFESTEEM.TXT, REALIZEWORTH.TXT, and GOODNESS.DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC.EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.

Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE.MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH.COM, PEACE.EXE, and CONTENTMENT.COM are copying themselves all over MYHEART!

CS Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle It from here. One more thing before I go…

Customer: Yes?

CS Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various
modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you.

Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.

AND FINALLY

Arthur Kent sends the following regarding the 2000 bug. Ken posted this a few weeks ago but I think it's worth another airing. It’s great to know that at least one country in the world is ahead of the curve.

I’M OK!, YOU’RE OK!, Y2K!

A memo from the Zimbabwe Government Telecommunication Agency under the heading “Y2K Project Manager to the GTA, IT Directory”

Sir: I hope I haven’t misunderstood your instructions. Because, to be honest, none of this Y to K problem makes any sense to me. At any rate I have finished converting all the Y’s to K’s for all the months on all the company calendars so that the year 2000 is ready to go with the following new months: Januark, Februark, Mak, Julk.

I’m sure you’ll be pleased that the project has been completed well in advance of the target completion date. Yes, in Zimbabwe we are now 100% Y2K compliant.

Have a lazy Saturday afternoon and a happy evening with someone you care about. Join me tomorrow for “Some of the Best.” Sleep warm.

                         - RM 12/10/99 Previously unpublished.

CONSCIENCE