The above classic A&J comic strip was based on a true story. So where do I get my ideas? Rhymes with “woes.” In all fairness, machine oil is one of those items that is so common it can hide in plain sight, like toothpicks in a grocery store.
Oil Can Harried
By Jimmy Johnson
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199 responses to “Oil Can Harried”
GR6 – I do genealogy and your thought never occurred to me! I’m trying to imagine a grave marker with a legend such as “1/3 Josephine Schmo” plus dates! Can’t imagine there’d be room for footnotes as to the location of each of the remaining thirds….
Wife & I will be cremated, but plan for 100% of our ashes to be buried in a cemetery (partially) on the land her ancestors owned, in view of the house they built there in the 1830s and which their descendants still inhabit. We bought the lot a few years ago and even did a very poor, short dance on it just so we could say that we have danced on our own graves! I considered that a novel idea….
CEP: Sounds like a good idea to me!
Lilyblack- Just saw your 4:23 post. In 1962, in KS, I met a very old woman whose father – not grandfather – had been on the Union side as a quartermaster. He and his family had saved every letter he wrote and he had saved every military order he had received. The woman owned his orders stating who needed what, say, artillery at which place by which time – and so forth. I was allowed to look through a large packing carton of such, but she wasn’t of a mind to sell anything which her father had owned…not that I could have afforded to buy, anyway.
As I was leaving, stunned at what I knew was there, she casually told me she had six more cartons of the same yet in the attic!
What a treasure for the historian and, possibly, for the philatelic world. I never did find out what happened to that hoard. By 1980, the house had been replaced by apartments, so not even the building was still there. I can only hope her heirs did something for the improvement of educational/historical knowledge of that era.
CEP: I certainly agree with you that there was probably a book or two in that horde
Dear Jackie Monies, Our Town is a big favorite of mine, too. The scene in the cemetery is unusual, to say the least, and very moving. We are lucky here in NH to live not too far from the original of “Grovers Corners” (well, forty or fifty miles? That’s not much to you guys out in the wide open spaces.) Wilder’s book that I used to like the best is “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” … I adored it.
Today’s “story line” here in the Village is enormously interesting! I’ve been “glued” to the computer far longer that I intended when I began. Ancestors … with unusual names … hardware stores … old family photos and letters … cremation and cemeteries … the people here have varied and meaningful lives and stories.
I’ve gotta say, that I cannot remember any serious personal attacks happening here; and I am a regular and very thorough reader. I’m at home nearly every day and visit this site often several times a day (as I can see lots of you do too!) I got in trouble with one fellow who took something I said very badly … apparently … I had not meant it at all in the way he took it! (No, it wasn’t you, Dave in MA) that fellow doesn’t post any more.
Unfortunately too many people are like my despicable great aunt and burn it all. There were records in that trunk she burned going back to America’s colonial period and she burned it all out of hatred of her own family.
I did rescue a few genealogical books before she could burn them because they were smaller.
I have been dividing up photos from my grandmother’s house and trying to get them to family or someone who’d want them. Unfortunately so much stuff is not marked and no one actually knows who they are!
Ditto furniture. My great aunt had furniture from the Arts and Crafts period that was actually quite valuable but the other great aunt thought it was hideous and either burned it or gave most to the yard man. She was so ignorant she didn’t realize it’s value.
Love, Jackie Monies
My sister-in-law does a lot of geneaology research. One of her suggestions is that you include some of your family information in the beginning of your will (I ___ daughter of ___ and ___, granddaughter of…., etc.). I believe she said that if a will goes through probate it becomes public record and the information would thus be available to any future family researchers. Her will also designates where her research results, reference materials, etc., should go; I think hers may be going to the DAR but local libraries or historical societies are other good options.
On the subject of ashes: A dear friend, that we lost way too soon, loved to travel with his wife and family – and he still does. Whenever any of them are going to places he loved or would have loved, they take a little vial of ashes to scatter. His wife even gave some to one of his former students when he returned to his family home in Bulgaria; he had heard of their tradition and asked to share in it because Bill had meant so much to him. Not the right thing for everyone but it makes them happy.
What a great idea, Ruth Anne!
Hello, Dearest Virgin. Good to see you are your usual sulky self. 🙂
Debbe 😉 Thanks for the tune. LR was a cutie. Oh, and a good singer, too. 😉
Jean dear, I ran across the “Shower Song” as sung by “Phoebe Buffay” on the TV show Friends. For some reason, it made me think of you. 😉
I’m in the shower, and I’m writing a song,
Stop me if you’ve heard it,
My skin is soapy and my hair is wet
And Tegrin, spelt backwards, is Nirget.
(instrumental)
Lather, rinse, repeat
And lather, rinse, repeat
And lather, rinse, repeat
And lather, rinse, repeat
As needed
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
We chose to put my mother’s ashes into the river at Great Falls Montana. I hope by now she has made her way to New Orleans. The Big Easy was always her favorite city.
Ghost giggle x 2 😀
I think I mentioned my boating friend who died suddenly of leukemia. His family all came to our annual boating get together and brought Paul’s ashes. Another friend who used to be head of chaplains at the Air Force Academy did a lovely memorial. We sent Paul’s ashes home with over a hundred boaters to scatter in their waters. Then I solicited other boaters worldwide to scatter ashes and I mailed them all over the world. Paul went to almost everywhere except Antarctica and the North Pole. I think through the great waters of our world circulating he will live with us throughout the existence of our planet on a great journey of discovery.
Paul would like that.
Love, Jackie Monies
Re Virgin Mindy today, I guess I’m just slow today. 25 of 148?? Help, someone, please….
Regarding saving correspondence, I have been known to print interesting emails or other computer material. Paper copies are still the best archival material for any pictures or text.
NK: VM’s post was #149. My guess is that she read the home page and saw “148 replies to ‘Oil Can Harried,'” and either did or feigned to have read through and found only 25 that interested her. Meh!
Debbe 😉 This is not about me, of course. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLVEnYYRAqU
Today’s posts have been so interesting, I just went back and reread the entire lot. I liked them even better with a second reading.
One thing no one mentioned are old moving pictures of family. I had an uncle who was not only a photography nut but took movies at family events. These films are disintegrating rapidly and becoming lost.
For our last family reunion his son had CD’s made for all of us from several of these old movies, where the family soundlessly hunted Easter eggs, gathered on great grandmother’s yard in Adirondack chairs (now gone forever) Mostly sitting or standing in lines but some where we played or were active.
All of those long dead family alive again. What a wonderful idea and gift.
Love, Jackie Monies
Not fair, I followed Ghosts u tube link and suddenly I ended up listening to Mustang Sally and Brown Eyed Girl and Louie Louie and one led to another. I was back in college dancing to bands like Good Rockin’ Doopsie and sliding around in a pond of beer on the dance floor.
With our clothes on, of course. But has anyone seen the old movie “Shag”? Where they pour the beer kegs on the dance floor and people do the Alligator and turn the floor into a water/beer slide?
Love, Jackie Monies
Dearest Debbe, what is your prognostication for how well I shall sleep tonight?
Jackie, didn’t that ruin your clothes? I would have been hiding n the bathroom peeking out the door.
In the 1960’s some things were done in a romantic and gentile fashion, like White Rose balls or military court presentations, the sorts of things the colleges/universities approved of.
And then there were all the unapproved events that happened every weekend in the unapproved back room bars, usually put on by fraternities but sometimes by independents.
Truly, if you want to see a movie that portrays that period about as accurately as any, I recommend “Shag-the Movie” from 1989. My youngest daughter was 13 at the time and her best friends mother was from NC and remembered the Shag contests of her youth.
My daughter asked if it was all true? Had I done all the things in the movie? I had to admit the author must have been along on a lot of events, especially the 1960’s parties!
The fraternity (whose letters I don’t remember) had to buy a new dance floor which I recall as several thousand dollars after the beer pool flooding and the Alligator sliding event. I hadn’t realized it was a nationally done event until I saw the movie!
Love, Jackie Monies (And yes, everyone ruined their clothes and we smelled of beer!)
You are a lot braver than I am, Jackie. I would have snuck to the nearest door and run till I got back to my room, closed the door, and locked it!
Lily luv, if you’d been to some of the parties I’ve been to, you’d have run back to your room, closed the door, locked it, and never come out. 😉
There is a small detail I left out, which is I am now and have been most of my life, a teetotaler. We did most of this stuff cold sober- well, I did anyway. Some people may have actually swallowed as they wallowed.
I found some youtube video of “Shag-the Movie” and did not actually realize it was choreographed by same guy as “Dirty Dancing”. “Dirty Dancing” is not accurate on the period of the Catskill resorts. That part about the corny activities is but the dancing is not.
“Shag” however is. Any of the four girls could have been friends of mine. And definitely the convertible! And the music and dancing is right on.
Love, Jackie Monies