Today’s guest post comes from tim.

I like marilyn monroe.

i watched a movie about her, well actually in my own adhd way i enjoyed a movie about her. got the gist of it and got back to my life in about 10-15 minutes and was able to plug in the theme of the movie, lawrance olivier was a great stage actor who wanted to be a great film star and marilyn was a great film star who wanted to be a great actor. it is said marilyn had a hard time getting it right but when she did every eye in the place was on her.

brad pitt is dumb as a rock.

robert redford chose brad pitt to be in a river ran through it and turned him into a star. i happened at the time to be listening to a books on tape story that had brad reading from his pre star days. he stumbled his way through the reading mispronouncing the hard words and doing that stammer when you see the word coming and you dont know how to pronounce it, then pushing forward in a way that results in a cadence that makes your voice do a herky jerky tempo that reminds me of a rumba line. a river ran through it was a beautiful movie, story, was beautiful cinematography it won critical acclaim but what it will go down as in my book is as the vehicle that launched brad pitt.

entertainers are allowed to be wonderful at what they are at and no one asks brad pitt to read anymore but he has a wonderful future as eye candy.

johnny depp may or may not be sharp. it doesnt matter because he is so creative.

jimmy stewart and tom hanks are the same person in different generations.

sophia loren, emmie lou harris and cher are incredible 70 somethings.

i like bob dylan, tom waits, andrea bocelli, ella fitzgerald, chet baker, willem de kooning ansel adams, art deco, raspberries, pinot grigio,pesto, mornig fog, a sultry voice, a cats purr, sunshine on my shoulders, ice cold water and i dont know why. marilyn sure was pretty, jimmy stewart is personable, who doesnt like sun on their back and isnt life great when we appreciate the simple gifts we have. no one ever looks at a mountain and says it is beautiful but the mineral deposits are not as strong as those in theurals, no one looks at a raspberry and says yeah it tastes good but it is lacking in terms of beta carotene.

we have a set of values in our head that says good or bad, pleasant or repulsive, i want it or get me outta here. i dont know where you got yours and i dont care where i came upon mine but you are not going to be able to talk me out of the things i like.

sometimes its simple. ice cold water on a hot day vs putrid eggs in an unopened garbage can. you know which you want and what to choose but what about all the other stuff we run into every day?

isnt it amazing others dont see the beauty and feel the attraction to the same things that call out to you?

how can pink martini not be the most popular music in the world?

how can there be any pistachio’s left?

why isnt there a radio station that just plays miles davis kind of blue 24/7?

What is taste?

Today’s guest post comes from Ben.

I was thinking about money and how our son hasn’t figured out the ‘saving’ part of it yet. (How long does that take anyway??)

The first thing I bought when I had my own checking account was a digital watch. Digital watches had just come out and I got a fancy Timex one like this.

The fact you had to push a button to see the time wasn’t such an inconvenience as you might imagine. Especially at 17 and having just bought a watch.

I started getting an allowance about age 8. It was a quarter each week. When I turned 9 I got a raise to $0.50 per week. When I turned 10 and was expected to start helping with the milking every night I asked for $0.75 and Dad offered me $1. I had already gotten a raise and I hadn’t even started!
I was in the barn all the time anyway so that milking requirement didn’t actually mean much. Although maybe Mom stopped calling me to come back to the house for my bath.

And it’s odd; I don’t really remember what happen to my allowance after that.

I bought a lot of Dennis the Menace comic books, the big ‘Pocket Full of Fun’ books. And I was pleased to have the entire collection.

When I was 18 we worked out an arrangement that I got part of the milk check and I paid related expenses. And I remember Mom telling me I was more responsible with money than my brother. Not that he and I ever talked about it.

The next big thing I remember buying was a waterbed. Mom and Dad went out of town for the weekend and when they came home I had a waterbed. Mom said she didn’t care, but I had to wash the sheets and make the bed myself. And that’s probably how I got in the habit of making the bed in the morning.

Our son was 10 when we started his allowance at $5 / week. But we weren’t very good at keeping up with it and he didn’t always ask so it gradually became $20/ month and then IOU’s and then it just sort of faded away. I’m not proud of that.

It’s interesting how spending money has changed. If we wanted something, we had to drive into town and actually write a check or pay cash. ‘ONLINE’ hadn’t been invented yet. But for kids today, middle of the night on their computer they order movies, music and camouflage Frisbee carriers. It takes awhile to get the concept that it’s still ‘real money’. How’s that old joke go? ‘I can’t be broke; I still have checks left.’

Did you get an allowance? What did you buy?

Today’s guest blog comes from Jacque.

My husband Lou and I both read John Berendt’s 1994 book about Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, with pleasure and disbelief.

“We must check this place out!” we said to each other.

But we were slow to act until I learned my family had a connection to Savannah. A distant relative gathered and published her grandfather’s Civil War letters to his wife, a Jewish-to-Christian convert named Tobitha Klein Hess. This soldier, German-born Frederick Christian Hess, was my Great-great Grandfather. He toured Savannah on Sherman’s March to the Sea, spending time there as part of the occupying forces. His gracious granddaughter, Muriel Primrose Baron, made the transcripts of these letters available to all of this soldier’s descendants—about 2000 people at last count.

The spellings and capitalizations here are his, a mix of English and German. When he wrote this on Christmas Day in 1864, he had only been studying English for nine years.

The City is full of Cityzins fore they didn’t have time to run off this time. There is lots of Jews and they are very strong Sesesh. (Secessionist and pro-Confederate) But the most of the Citizens are wealthy that are living in this City.

We entered Savannah on Highways 16 to 17 to Martin Luther Drive to Liberty Avenue where suddenly a canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss laid before us.

I will send you some moss wich is growing on trees and some rice on the straw and some acorns wich are from a live oak and a magnolia seed. The magnolia is a very nice tree with large green leafs all year.

I expected to see lots of Civil War history, but no. The American Revolution is the war people to refer to in Savannah, where it is heavily memorialized.

“…in one square is the Monument of General Polaski who fell at the Siege of Savannah, Oct the 9, 1779. This is largest Monument I ever seen. It is about forty feet high and about ten foot square at the bottom, with the Inscription, “Polaski, the heroic Pole who was fighting fore American Liberty and fell mortally wounded at the Siege of Savannah, 9 Oct. 1779. And then the General is carved out on horseback wich is very nice work.”

When I first saw this monument, knowing I stood near the place my ancestor stood, I had chills down my spine.

“Now I will tell what I think of the City and give you the Discription of it. Fore yesterday fornenoon I went down in the City and took a good look at it. It is a pretty nice place with some costly buildings in it, mostly brick. It is all level and is close to the Savannah river. The streets are very Sandy and don’t run very strait fore the whole City is laid off of Squares. There is several very nice parks in it and a water fountain….

I took a picture of Lou is standing in front of the Forsyth Park fountain, the very same one Grandpa Fred viewed 160 years earlier, though for us it was dyed green for St. Pat’s day.

F.C. Hess

Though the Civil War is curiously absent from the city’s displayed history, it is alive in people’s minds. During our 2007 visit a lovely Southern Matron who was volunteering at the Visitor’s Center clarified to me, “We don’t call it The Civil War. Here we refer to that as the War of Northern Aggression.”

Hmmm. I thought.

During a tour of Sherman’s Headquarters this attitude was echoed yet again. A very distinguished gentleman lead the tour which was punctuated with resentful comments about “the Yankee Occupation” and “General William Tecumsah Sherman who did us the favor of not burning us out!” Apparently, this resentment has festered for 160 years because Grandpa Fred referred to it as well, on December 29th, 1864:

“And everybody young and old even small Children that cant hardly talk yet are talking about Sherman. The folks down here thinks that he is an awful man. And I guess that they will think more so before he gets through with them. The Citizens say that Sherman has a very good army and that there wasnt as much trouble in town now, as there use to be when there was only a few Companys of rebel soldiers.”

We enjoyed the Savannah Southern Low-Country Cuisine—seafood boils, cornbread, and grits—my favorite is Shrimp and Grits. Grandpa Fred ate some of the same fare:

“I was down in the City yesterday and got something to eat. We can buy rice and cornbread and molasses in town frome the Citizens. Rice is 25cts per quart. Cornbread is different prices but they are big anough you can depent on that. Mollasses is one Dollar per quart.”

I returned to Savannah, at my mother’s request, with my mother and sister in 2008 to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. During that trip we toured gardens and experienced a Southern Tea. Mom was already using a cane and occasionally a rolling walker at that time. The cane and walker caused us to become acutely aware of the brick sidewalks and protruding, bumpy bricks everywhere.

“The churchbells have been ringing this morning and it sounded very much like home. And I should went to Church but I had to get ready fore inspection. And then I was detailed to go on picket.”

Grandpa Fred was more soldier than sightseer. But I find it amazing that I was able to walk in his footsteps 160 years after he viewed many of the same landmarks in this breathtakingly graceful city.

When and where have you traveled to get closer to your own history?

Today’s guest blog comes from Madislandgirl

I have a genuine fondness and deep respect for those people known today as “seniors”, although I think of that as a business designation for tax purposes or something.

The folks I know are so much more than that. They have wit, wisdom, and killer sense of humor. They will tell that they are old, pure and simple. I always tell them that my rule is, once you turn 80, you get to do (or not do) whatever you like.

Many of them have detailed and crystal clear memories of things that happened decades ago … but they cannot recall what you just told them about when supper was going to be served.

They can still speak and understand the Korean they learned while serving there in the “police action” … but they cannot come up with their apartment number or find their way back to it.

I recently was made aware of the fact that the Pennsylvania Polka has lyrics- I had no idea, but the whole thing was sung for me by a person who could not remember what day it was. That’s ok, all I can recall of the Pennsylvania Polka is that it rhymes “mania” with Penn-syl-vania!

The really bothersome thing for these friends of mine is that they do know that they asked the question, and you gave them an answer, but they have no idea what that answer was. Some of them find this to be an intellectual curiosity. Some of them feel downright annoyed about the whole thing.

“We had no idea getting old was going to be like this-our parents were long dead before they got this old. Of course, I don’t know what we would have done differently if we had known, I don’t suppose we would have believed it anyway”.

How do you manage new information that you know you have to remember?

Today’s guest post was written by Steve in St. Paul.

The wind was gusting between 30 and 40 miles an hour. That didn’t bother me, sitting in my van at the stoplight, but it threatened to blow away the two old women struggling to cross the street ahead of me. They were spinning about and clutching each other in panic as gusts of wind sent them this way and that.

I lowered my window and yelled, “Do you ladies need a ride?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, they began struggling toward the car. They barely had the strength to open the van’s doors against the force of the wind.
Once inside, both ladies giggled uncontrollably like a pair of drunks. They couldn’t believe how helpless they had been against the wind.

“Can you take us all the way to Snyders?” asked the one in the front seat.” We need to renew our medications.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s just a bit downwind. If you’d just held your skirts open, you would have blown to Snyders in seconds.”
“Well bless you young man, you saved two old nuns,” said the one in front.
“You were just about to become two old sails,” I said.

We were at Snyders by then.

“I’ll give you a ride home when you’re done,” I offered.
“That would be wonderful,” they chimed.

When I returned, the nuns struggled again to get in the car. They were still laughing merrily.

“We really appreciate this,” said one. “Sister Elizabeth is 87 and I’m Sister Constance Marie. I’m 83.”
“You need to pork up if you’re gonna walk in this kind of weather,” I said. “Unless you each put on couple dozen pounds or so, you are going to blow to Wisconsin.”
“I believe God sent you,” said Sister Elizabeth.
“Then God has a sense of humor,” I said. “God should have sent you a sweet Catholic boy instead of a chubby old atheist.”

Giggling like schoolgirls, they gave me directions to their nunnery.

“You might not believe in God, but you obviously have him in your heart,” said Sister Constance Marie.
“It would be nice to think I’ve got God somewhere in me. Based on the rules, the way I understand them, I’m not a candidate for getting into Heaven. I need to start piling up good deeds or I’ll be let there on the outside, pounding my fists on the door and whimpering.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” said Sister Elizabeth.
“Anyway,” said Sister Constance Marie, “you helped two nuns. That counts twice as much.”
“And you helped us two times,” said Sister Constance Marie. “That’s the equivalent of helping four nuns.”
“And we would have had to change busses,” said Sister Elizabeth, “so as far as I’m concerned you get credit for six good deeds today.”
“Well, let’s hope the Great Scorekeeper is as generous as you are. If I gave rides to nuns every day for the rest of my life, I’m not sure I’d balance out the naughty stuff I’ve done. But I’ll settle for a six-nun day. That’s a good start.”

The nuns were still laughing gaily as they struggled toward the front door of their residence, holding each other for support as the wind buffeted them about.

Have you ever done a favor for a stranger?

Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove.

Have you noticed a big increase in advertisements coming to you by email? I didn’t mind it when there were only a few because they might be the only messages that were there when I checked my mailbox. Their presence confirmed that my email was still connected. Now I must be getting 20 or 30 or more unwanted advertising messages every day. I don’t have to wonder if my email is working.

How did all of these advertisers get my address?

On one or two occasions I have been persuaded to follow up on one of those promises of getting something free which required me to type my email address into a box on a web site. I suppose that might account for at least some of the ads. I didn’t get the things that were offered but apparently they got my address and have passed it around. I should have known that a free laptop computer was too good to be true.

I suppose my response to those offers has caused some people to think I am a candidate for all kinds of sleazy things. I’m not really looking to meet up with hot single women and I don’t know why they think I would want a special kind of bra. I have been told that I can earn a fortune working from home. I also get a bunch of offers for home improvement services. I would like to tell the vinyl siding and window replacement people that I live in a cave.

There was a time when I let ads stay in my inbox for several days. Now I delete unwanted stuff very soon after I get it, but sometimes I accidently trash what I really want to keep. As a result, I am afraid to empty out my file of deleted messages because there might be something in there I do not really want to lose.

How do you manage your email?