Mental Challenge!

Free Cell

Each Morning, when I go to my computer, the first thing I do is play “Free Cell.”  I am constantly impressed by the mentality of the person or persons who came up with this game.  Now, it seems to be a game of “Solitaire!  But, that is not really the way I look at it.  To me, it is as simple or as complicated as rearranging a lot of furniture in a very small room!  You move the coffee table here so, you can pull the sofa away from the wall, and then the end tables must be shoved behind the sofa in order to make room for the arm chair, etc.  You see what I mean?

 

So far, I have not found one game that could not be solved.  Some are extremely difficult and so, on occasion, I will quit the game out of lack of time, or accidentally close the game improperly.  When you do that, it counts as a loss.  Once, long ago, I completed 35 games in a row.  My best record so far.

 

My point, about mentioning this game, is to tell you that this is how I check my mental sharpness for the day ahead.  Some days, when I really have to struggle with the game, and click onto “undo” several times, and sometimes go all the way back to the beginning of the game and start over from there, that is when I realize that this would not be a good day to try to balance my check book! 

 

There are days when I can solve the games without effort.  I tend to gloat, to myself of course, and am so proud of myself that, I take on other mental tasks.  I used to work the “New York Times Crossword Puzzle.  I especially loved the Sunday one.  I quit doing that when I quit taking the paper.  Also, my eyes are not what they used to be.  That used to be my mental check!  Now it is “Free Cell. 

 

I suppose that, as long as I can work this game, I think I am OK!  I hope I am not deluding myself.  Meanwhile it is good entertainment and I highly recommend it to everyone!

Wrong Number... Please!

Since, at my age, I am not doing anything that is very interesting, when someone calls and asks me what I am doing, I decided to come up with a list of things for answering that question. 

 

For instance, restringing my tennis racquet, or helping Hillary plan Chelsea’s wedding, repacking my parachute!  You get the picture!  Silly stuff. 

 

This morning a lady called and instead of saying “Hello“ she asked what I was doing, so I told her that I was counting the number of grains of salt in my salt shaker!  When she asked why in the world would I do that, I realized I did not recognize the voice on the other end of this call.  I said, “I’ll bet you have a wrong number.” And she asked me if I was Wanda, and I assured her she did, indeed, have a wrong number.  She said “Well I am sorry, but can I call you again sometime?  You sound like fun.”  That made me chuckle.  I hope she does call again, as she sounded like someone who would appreciate my weird sense of humor!

 

After I hung up, I got to thinking about how things were 50 or 60 years ago when our town was much smaller.  In those days when you got a wrong number it was always someone you knew, and you could chat for a half hour!   In those days I would have recognized the voice immediately and naturally, they would have known who I was as soon as I answered the phone, because it took a while for me to loose my California accent. 

 

Things do change!

Canning Memories!

My Grandmother died when my Mother was only 10 years old.  Mother had to become the cook and housekeeper for my Grandfather and a younger brother.  There were a couple of neighbor ladies who helped her some, that is, with advice and what ever they could contribute as they both had large families to care for.  Mother never developed into a great cook, however, she did learn from those friends, to excel in one area. She loved to do the canning.

After we became homeowners, in California, around 1936, we had 5 acres of land with the house and barn.  The first thing Dad did was put in a garden.  Mother started canning again.  And one year she even won a blue ribbon for her green beans at the county fair.  One of my jobs was to clean and help sterilize the fruit jars. I doubt that I thought it was great fun to help with that chore, at the time! 

 

After I married, it happened, the man I married loved gardening. We almost always had a large garden and so we started canning.  Now, you may not think this would become a very special enterprise, but it did.  He always loved to help me and we would sit together and snap beans or what ever, and we would reminisce about when we were kids and helping the elders with their canning.  I would tell him about crawling under the house, where the jars were stored, and bringing them into the kitchen to clean.  He told me about neighbors gathering each year to can corn.  His job was to turn the crank on the apparatus that sealed the lids onto the tin cans, that they used.  

 

Hmmm, the word canning came, I am sure, from the fact that they used cans in those early days and the term did not change after we started using mostly jars.  You wouldn’t say “jarring” would you?

 

Any way, it was a very companionable pastime and I loved that.  Often my Mother would come and help and it was very pleasant. 

 

Later we bought a large food freezer and began freezing a lot of our produce, especially fruit.  We did not grow peaches, but every July we would go to Montague County and buy them.  One year, with the help of Mother and Dad and an Aunt and Uncle, and whoever else we could find, we put up 5 bushels of peaches. What a mess that was in our tiny little kitchen and what fun it was.  And, how my Husband loved peaches!  Often he would not even wait till they were thawed, before starting to eat them.  Good memories, often recalled now that I no longer have those dear people with me. 

Can you imagine, though, what a happy day it was, recently, when my Daughter called and asked if I would like to help her put up some peaches. What do you think my answer was?

Connections

I became interested in genealogy around 1995, and what was most interesting to me, was the fact that there were so many real connections, links, some of which covered several decades even! You probably can come up with some of your own, if you start thinking about it.

 

A Doctor and his wife, Joe and Betty, retired and moved from Dallas to our small town.  Everyone immediately loved them and we were happy to have them join our group of friends. 

 

It turned out Joe had been my Daughter-in-Law’s pediatrician when she was a baby!

 

He was in the Navy during WW2, and was on the ship that retrieved George Ray Tweed from the Island of Guam! My uncle, by marriage!

 

We all went to New Mexico to hunt Antelope, on a ranch owned by Hugh and Naomi Holland.  Joe and Naomi got to talking one evening and discovered that she had been a nurse to one of his associates, years before!

 

More links.

 

Naomi mentioned that she had grown up in Pampa, Texas.  My husband told her that he had relatives in Pampa.  It turned out that one of his cousins was her best friend in High school!  Another of his cousins owned an Appliance Store in Pampa. Though we did not know it at the time, when we visited his store, I had a cousin who was working for him……I did not learn of her existence until years later when I was well into genealogy! 

 

There were so many of this sort of connections that I found and I was constantly amazed.

 

Was it Kevin Bacon who said we are all only 6 degrees removed from one another? 

By the way............

My daughter is closer then 6 degrees removed from Kevin Bacon! How about that?

The Ghost of Guam

I was 11 years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor!  We had just come through a terrible depression, and the country was just beginning to recover from that.  Now we were at War!

 

Several years before the war we had a naval station near our town and the young sailors were often around.  My Father’s sister, Mary, had recently divorced and she and her young son were living with us when she met and started dating a naval radioman named George Ray Tweed.  When George came to our house he was always so patient with us children.  Many times he would sit down in front of our big console radio and take down the messages for us, that came over the radio in Morse Code.  We all liked him and ultimately he and Aunt Mary were married.  He had been given his shipping orders and was to leave for Guam and could take his family with him.  I don’t know how long they were together in Guam, several years though, as they had a baby boy while Mary was over there.  I don’t remember how old he was when the Navy began evacuating civilians from Guam.  I know Mary did not want to leave, but had no choice in the matter.  

 

It was not too long after this that the Pearl Harbor bombing occurred.  I was very young, but I began to wonder if it was really the surprise everyone seemed to think it was.  Why else would they suddenly make the families of the servicemen come home?

 

I believe the Japanese took Guam the next day.  They came ashore and took all the military men prisoners. Some few escaped capture that day, and George Ray Tweed was one of them! 

 

Uncle Ray was the only one who managed to avoid capture, and with help from some of his friends, the natives, he was able to survive the balance of the war.  The Japanese knew of his escape and they spent a lot of time, looking for him.  He said that there were times when he was hidden in the woods and they came within a few feet of him.  At one point he was hidden, for a while, in a leprosy hospital.  It nearly broke his heart when he learned that several of those friends who helped hide him, were beheaded by the Japanese. After he found out about the harsh treatment given to his friends, he decided that he could no longer put their lives in jeopardy and he hid out in a hard to get to cave until the war was almost over.  The cave was well hidden and the owner of the land would bring him food and supplies as often as he could.  He spent the rest of the time in isolation.  I read once that he had a “Readers Digest” tucked in his back pocket when he escaped.  He said that he had managed to keep it, and while he was in the cave, he would read aloud from it, in order to keep his voice active.

 

From his high perch, he was able to see the American fleet when it approached.  As I understand it, he was able to send a signal to them, and after they confirmed that he was really an American, he was able to help in the recapture of Guam, because of his knowledge of the island.   Guam is a very small Island and Tweed knew it well.

 

He became quite famous after the war and a movie and a couple of books were written about him. When he returned home there was a huge parade in Los Angeles, given in his honor.  I remember that his hair had turned completely white during his ordeal.

For Two Cents I'D. . .

I pay almost all of my bills through the bank…..Therefore when I receive a notice of an account that is due, and in the notice is a return envelope for payment, although plainly printed on the statement are the words “Do not pay, automatic withdrawal from your bank account” I think, why!  Why do they always include a return envelope?

 

Yesterday I received a check from Medicare. Seems they owed me 1 cent…..  So, get this, the check for 1 cent arrived by mail with a first class potage, presort rate, of .35 cents. So it cost Medicare .35 cents to send me that check.

 

And I’m thinking, is anyone out there THINKING?

 

I am trying to decide whether to cash the check or frame it.  NO, neither one.  I am posting it on my refrigerator to show people as a conversation piece!