Funny Friday ~ BoomBox by Dixon Diaz

Throwback Thursday: Titusville, Florida in November 1962

I grew up in a sleepy little central Florida town of Titusville. It's a metropolis now but in the 1960’s many of our roads where still dirt. Garden Street was a cow path when I was a tot. My adopted parents owned about one acre of land planted with Orange Trees, Kumquats, Grapefruit and the like. When they left western Pennsylvania, they really went native.

 

This Polaroid was snapped in our mini orange grove during November of 1962. They are my adopted father’s grandparents, Charles Edward Ackman and Edna Bella Ehle Ackman, affectionately known by the family respectfully as “Da Da” and “Mum Mum”. I don't know how they got those titles, but it stuck all their lives.

My memories of “Da Da” are sporadic since he died within months of me losing my mother. I do remember fishing with Grandad in Florida. All my memories are of him with a fishing pole in his hand. In fact, he died pulling in a really big fish on the Indian River in December of 1966. Da Da let me taste my first beer when I was 8. He took me in my first, and only, parade ride on the volunteer fire truck and seemed a genuinely content sort of fellow. 

“Mum Mum” lived until April 1981 to the ripe old age of 84. Mum Mum was a real sweetheart. On Sunday’s, she made sure I attended the local Lutheran church, read the Bible with me, taught me how to crochet, and always treated me like family. She had a very quiet, gentle, "take life as it comes" demeanor. Everybody loved Mum Mum. She was a fine Christian woman and I miss her the most.

On a funny note, this is not a “throwback” but my husband shared this with me this evening and thought it would be good for a giggle. He found it at his Honda CB1100 Forum.

Aren't those Aussie's a hoot?! Or, as they call themselves, The Land of Oz. (How they came up with "Oz", I have no idea.) They have that typical English humor but act like Americans.

Have a great day folks!

Part Ten: Shootout At The OK Canal

As I stated in his first post, once weekly I plan to feature a guest writer, my husband. Since we have no children, he has been painstakingly writing down the stories of his childhood to share them with his then 9 year old niece. I wanted her to know what kind of childhood her beloved Uncle was able to enjoy. While enjoying them myself I thought these are so much fun to read, why not share them? So here are the short missives of his memories of growing up in wilds of Florida during the 1950's and 1960's. They're packed with misadventures, romance, and all the confusing things that can happen in our youth. Even though his hometown of Jacksonville is a big city with over a million residents now, during his childhood it was several small communities surrounded by countryside.

This is his story.

(Please note: None of the photos in this post are from our files. They are all from the internet.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Shootout At The OK Canal

by Steven R. Hudson

There were certain items in Grandma Cootie's house that were off limits to me and my cousins, Uncle Bill's guns. They were everywhere about the house. There was a revolver atop the dresser in Grandma's bedroom. A Winchester rifle was leaned in the corner of the living room and Uncle Bill's Walther pistol, a war souvenir, was often lying on a desk top. We youngsters were warned that these guns were always loaded and we were not to touch them. We never did for we feared the consequences. In order to satisfy our youthful curiosity, Uncle Bill took me and cousins Billy and Johnny down an old dirt road that followed one of the many local drainage canals. We were going shooting and were agog with excitement. We had never shot anything other than BB guns but now we would be handling and shooting real firearms. Uncle Bill stopped the car in a wooded place on the canal bank and went about setting up some old cans as targets.

 His old Winchester .22 rifle was taken out and it's safe operation explained to us. Soon we were taking turns enjoying the crack of the rifle and watching the cans topple.We shot the little rifle until our ears rang and, all too soon, it was time to leave. Before we left though, Uncle bill got out his .30-30 lever action Winchester to demonstrate the difference between this rifle and the little .22 we had been shooting. He told us to cover our ears and then fired at a small pine tree growing on the canal bank. CRACK-BOOM went the rifle and the tree seemed to explode at it's base and then topple over. We were dumbstruck. I now dreamed of having my own rifle and the fulfillment of that dream was not far off.

Grandma and Uncle Bill did not live in St. Lucie long when they decided to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Uncle Bill had been a plastering contractor for years but now dry wall was replacing plaster as the favored way to finish interior walls. Adobe style houses, common in New Mexico, required skilled plaster work. We would not see my Grandma or Uncle Bill for the next few years. They would hit on hard times in New Mexico and never recover the prosperity they had enjoyed in previous years. When they returned to Florida, they moved in with Gramoddy. Years later, they would homestead an island on the Indian River where many more great adventures awaited.

Two Minutes With The Bible ~ The Sins That Are Past

The Sins That Are Past 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Berean Bible Society

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In Chapter 3 of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans he declares that God has set forth Christ as a satisfaction for man’s sin and that redemption is obtained by faith in “His blood,” or His payment for sin at Calvary, entirely apart from works, religious or otherwise (Rom. 3:21-26).

But in this same passage he states that this “remission” concerns the “sins that are past” (Ver. 25). What does he mean by this? Some have taught from this verse that when a sinner turns to God for salvation all his sins are forgiven up to that time and now that he is saved he is henceforth responsible for himself. But this would mean that God saves men by His grace only to turn them over again to their own weak and sinful natures. If this were the case, the converted sinner would be lost again the same day, for what Christian believer is wholly free from sin?

Paul rather looks back here at past ages and declares that we now know and proclaim that men like Abel, Noah and Abraham, and also like Moses, David and Daniel (who lived under the Law) were actually saved by the redemption wrought by Christ, although Christ’s death was still future in their day. In other words, Christ died, not only for the sins which we have committed, but also for the “sins which are past.” The believers of past ages simply believed what God told them then, and God counted them righteous (Gen. 15:6) on the basis of Christ’s coming payment for sin.

We have the same truth set forth in Hebrews 9:15, where we are told that Christ’s death availed also “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant,” i.e., the Law.

How blessed we are to live at a time when God’s plan of salvation has been fully revealed, and that we can now look to the Lord Jesus Christ and exclaim with Paul:

“He loved me, and gave Himself for me!” (Gal. 2:20).

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To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Press Any Key To Continue #XP #Windows8

I must be a true Luddite because I hate change! A couple of days ago, I learned that starting April 8, 2014, Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

Panic mode!

As usual, I must be the last person in America to know this! Our home currently uses three computers. Now I learn they need upgrading and/or replacing?! [Oh, boy, another expense ... sigh] I did try to update the computers on-line and the Microsoft website said, "Nah, girl, that ain't happenin'. You have to spend major bucks on new equipment." [lol] In actuality, it showed the "Your computer is not compatible for an upgrade." 

Well, La De Da!

I think I have a cheaper solution that buying a whole new system. The Dell Desktop here in my office still has a good monitor, keyboard, speakers and mouse. I can reuse them on a new tower.

Right?! 

Hope so because I'm going with that. For now. I'll also need to buy a separate floppy disk access (is that the right term?). So, after perusing the Wal-Mart website last night I happened on a refurbished HP 110-023wb Desktop with Windows 8, 8 GB, 1 TB Hard Drive, etc. for under $300 with a limited warranty. I made sure to read the reviews. According to the previous purchasers who posted, I can still use my "old" software programs. If I have to upgrade all those too, that will become costly.

But I still eventually need two small Laptops and/or Notebooks. I checked into a Tablet, but Husband said they are too hard to use with arthritic hands. Any suggestions or recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Also, any suggestions on how to get rid of the old computers? I'd prefer them to be "scrubbed" for security and privacy reasons. And I don't like the thought of cluttering up the landfill with usable electronic equipment. 

I hope everyone has a happy (and cheaper) weekend.

~ Ride Safe ~

Funny Friday ~ You Think English Is Easy? #Homographs

You Think English Is Easy?

Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.

A  homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

1)  The bandage was wound around the wound.

2)  The farm was used to produce produce.

3)  The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

 

4)  We must polish the Polish furniture.

5)  He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6)  The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7)  Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8)  A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9)  When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are animal organs. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?  Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. -  Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?

Throwback Thursday: My 1979 Kawasaki KZ650

Welcome to my first attempt at Throwback Thursday.

Above is a photo of my sweet Hubby and me from the early 1980's. I was only 24 and Hubby was 32. I wish I was still that skinny! This is my first street legal motorcycle. It was a 1979 Kawasaki KZ 650 set up for touring with a Vetter Fairing, Bates Box, and King and Queen seats. It even had a homemade cruise control, of sorts. Since we both liked to ride, and neither cared to be a passenger, we would take turns up front. Because female riders where a rarity in the '80s, we sure got some amazed looks!

We had a lot of adventures on this bike. "They" say hindsight's 20/20 but I wish I could have kept it. I sold the bike when we bought our first house in October 1981.

This photo was snapped somewhere between Titusville and Jacksonville, Florida, along the I-95 corridor. We where freshly married and had been down to visit my Dad and step-mother in Titusville for the day. It is about a two hour trip one way, so, about half way back we had stopped at one of the rest areas to refresh ourselves. A kindly by-stander, now long forgotten, took the picture for us. I'm forever grateful to that man. Because of his kindness we still have a very happy memory memorialized forever on film.