Jump to content

Stranger in a Strange Land


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Sally R said:

 

I remember we had a rotary phone when I was a kid, before it got replaced by one with push buttons. I loved the sound it made as it wound back before turning the dial to the next number. It was part of the phone call experience. It is funny to realise they might not make sense to teenagers today, just as probably many things we do today will be mysterious to future generations.

 

My father kept a rotary dial wall mounted phone, that was in our kitchen (in the house I grew up in)...it was still working until he moved into an assisted living residence, in 2005.  It was fun to show my kids when they were little.  I am sure the new homeowners got rid of it right away.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The best thing about the old rotary phones was that they had a bit of heft and were really solidly made so that they made a very satisfactory sound when you hung up anglilly with a good emphatic slam. I have known people attempt the same fit of pique by throwing their cell phone across the room, but that usually doesn't end well. For a few short years they made the same basic phone with a push button dial which pretty well combined the best of both worlds

Edited by Robert M Estall
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

I saw a video where someone gave two teenage boys a working old-fashioned rotary phone. They tried for ages to make it work. First off, they left the handset in the cradle while dialing. Not that they knew to take each number all the way to the stop anyway!
It was hilarious. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/AntiqueThis/videos/1517341881729938/

 

It is hilarious Betty! Love the way the keep lifting the receiver up and down like ‘switch it off and back on again’!

Edited by Thyrsis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When my mom married my stepdad, we lived on his family farm for 18 months. There was electricity but no water, we had to pump it from a well into a bucket. Had an outhouse. The phone, a big wooden thing, hung on the wall. It had a crank on the side to connect to an operator, then you told her the number you wanted to call. It was a party line meaning several other people used it. If you put the listening part to your ear and heard someone talking, you hung up and waited. The reception was noisy and crackly, voices faint, so one seldom used the phone. Modern conveniences had not yet came to Renfrow, Oklahoma. It was frozen in time.
 

The town had one blinking caution light and had a small grocer/post office combination with fuel pumps, a granary/silo (after all, it was a farming community), the school and maybe 20 houses, if that. The school had 14 kids grade 1-8. It was a one room school house with a pot-bellied wood or coal burning stove.
Again, we pumped water outside and brought it in. Everyone drank from the bucket using the same ladle and got sick together. I think I went through the days dehydrated a lot because I was grossed out. I was 3rd and 4th grade there because after a couple of weeks in 2nd grade at another school, I had been jumped to the third.

The bigger kids helped the young with schoolwork. If you misbehaved, you were sat in a corner on a tall stool. It was a “Little House on the Prairie” experience, like a big family.  Outhouse there also.

It felt good to move back to my home town with running water and a hot shower available. Yet the experience at the schoolhouse was a wonderful memory. We loved Mr. Reid and called him “Teacher” when we spoke to him. My education was top-notch and when joining my old school again, I had not lost a beat, if anything, I was ahead. A third-grader hearing the teacher give the other grades lessons absorbs some of it. 

Betty

Edited by Betty LaRue
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

When my mom married my stepdad, we lived on his family farm for 18 months. There was electricity but no water, we had to pump it from a well into a bucket. Had an outhouse. The phone, a big wooden thing, hung on the wall. It had a crank on the side to connect to an operator, then you told her the number you wanted to call. It was a party line meaning several other people used it. If you put the listening part to your ear and heard someone talking, you hung up and waited. The reception was noisy and crackly, voices faint, so one seldom used the phone. Modern conveniences had not yet came to Renfrow, Oklahoma. It was frozen in time.
 

The town had one blinking caution light and had a small grocer/post office combination with fuel pumps, a granary/silo (after all, it was a farming community), the school and maybe 20 houses, if that. The school had 14 kids grade 1-8. It was a one room school house with a pot-bellied wood or coal burning stove.
Again, we pumped water outside and brought it in. Everyone drank from the bucket using the same ladle and got sick together. I think I went through the days dehydrated a lot because I was grossed out. I was 3rd and 4th grade there because after a couple of weeks in 2nd grade at another school, I had been jumped to the third.

The bigger kids helped the young with schoolwork. If you misbehaved, you were sat in a corner on a tall stool. It was a “Little House on the Prairie” experience, like a big family.  Outhouse there also.

It felt good to move back to my home town with running water and a hot shower available. Yet the experience at the schoolhouse was a wonderful memory. We loved Mr. Reid and called him “Teacher” when we spoke to him. My education was top-notch and when joining my old school again, I had not lost a beat, if anything, I was ahead. A third-grader hearing the teacher give the other grades lessons absorbs some of it. 

Betty

 

Wow! That sounds like the 19th century. Did you run into Billy the Kid? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, but I’m sure I probably play-acted Billy the Kid at some time or another! My sister and I often played in the pasture. The big erosion ditches were our palaces, and we played Sheena, Queen of the jungle, too. My stepdad carved us guns from wood, and we rode empty fuel barrels for horses, playing cowboys. Two tomboy girls that also played with dolls and toy dishes.
My mother put a halt to us scampering over the tall, steep barn roof though. She didn’t realize that we had guardian angels.
 

We begged to go along on a duck hunting expedition with our stepdad and his brother once. When they shot a beautiful male mallard and we got a close look, droplets of blood beaded up on those beautiful feathers, the wailing and hysterics ensured we’d never be allowed to go again, not that we ever wanted to. We were poor, and whatever was killed went on the table. My sister and I refused to eat any wild game.  Squirrel, rabbit...no-no. That was like eating our dog or something. Pet material.  Pass the potatoes and beans, please.
 

Mother raised chickens for eggs and the table, which was fine. Until we made a pet out of one of the chickens. When chicken-killing time came, we never knew if that crispy, fried chicken being served was our pet, so that year, we ate no chicken, either. Don’t make pets out of your food. Lesson learned.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

No, but I’m sure I probably play-acted Billy the Kid at some time or another! My sister and I often played in the pasture. The big erosion ditches were our palaces, and we played Sheena, Queen of the jungle, too. My stepdad carved us guns from wood, and we rode empty fuel barrels for horses, playing cowboys. Two tomboy girls that also played with dolls and toy dishes.
My mother put a halt to us scampering over the tall, steep barn roof though. She didn’t realize that we had guardian angels.
 

We begged to go along on a duck hunting expedition with our stepdad and his brother once. When they shot a beautiful male mallard and we got a close look, droplets of blood beaded up on those beautiful feathers, the wailing and hysterics ensured we’d never be allowed to go again, not that we ever wanted to. We were poor, and whatever was killed went on the table. My sister and I refused to eat any wild game.  Squirrel, rabbit...no-no. That was like eating our dog or something. Pet material.  Pass the potatoes and beans, please.
 

Mother raised chickens for eggs and the table, which was fine. Until we made a pet out of one of the chickens. When chicken-killing time came, we never knew if that crispy, fried chicken being served was our pet, so that year, we ate no chicken, either. Don’t make pets out of your food. Lesson learned.

 


Betty, if you wrote a novel about your life growing in the old Midwest, I would read it! You are a good storyteller.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Michael Ventura said:


Betty, if you wrote a novel about your life growing in the old Midwest, I would read it! You are a good storyteller.  

Michael, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I love to write.  I did start a novel once, but gave it up for photography after getting breast cancer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Michael, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I love to write.  I did start a novel once, but gave it up for photography after getting breast cancer.

 

Meant to write "growing up".  It's not too late.  Delia Owens wrote her first novel in her late 60s and it was a best seller, "Where the Crawdads Sing".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

 

Meant to write "growing up".  It's not too late.  Delia Owens wrote her first novel in her late 60s and it was a best seller, "Where the Crawdads Sing".

Not too late...not to late...something to think about.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first car was a 1950 Pontiac with the indian on the hood and a straight eight flat head engine.  When I got my license had to take all the kids to school.  I thought I was cool when I moved up to a 1955 Chevrolet Belair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

I think so too Betty. I really enjoyed reading your stories. They remind me of things my Dad told me about growing up in a small mining town. The school was as you describe, all the ages together in the same class. They lived in small houses of corrugated metal with dirt floors. There was running water at the mine, and that's where the men went to shower, I think once a week, while the women washed at home from water in a trough/container. One year they had 99 days in a row at 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees celsius), and they thought they were going to get 100 days at 100, but it dropped just below on the 100th day. My Dad was one of 13 kids, though that was from two marriages, as his mother died when he was a baby and his father remarried. His mother's mother had 16 children, not all of them surviving. It was an incredibly tough existence.

 

I think it would be great to write your story. I understand about turning to photography though. I find photography is like a therapy. I find I can always do it, no matter what else is going on in my life, whereas writing takes a bit more energy somehow. Though I think writing can be therapeutic too.

You are right about photography being therapeutic. If I wrote my story, I would have to relive some very dark times. Yet it is those dark times that would be interesting to a reader, I suppose. What’s weird is I can remember back to when I was just walking. Granted, only one memory then, the next being when I was about 2 1/2 or 3 years old. My mind took snapshots. I remember a lot from 4-5 years old.

I really respect what your dad went through. What doesn’t kill you, makes you strong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good morning Edo, 
just read your blog post and it resonated with me. It is very difficult, I think, when living on your own during this 'crisis'. I have pretty much perfected having a conversation with myself and not letting it spiral into an argument ! I am struggling, I have to be honest, really struggling. Having no contact with people from one day to the next is so hard. People message and say, "how are you doing, are your ok?" "yes, yes, I am fine, same old", but it is not, it is hard and I do not want people to worry, so say everything is fine. 
I go to the shops maybe once in 10 days, I try to get out for a walk but do not always feel inclined. Here in my coastal spot of Portugal the tourists are arriving and second home owners (mainly from Lisbon......a COVID hotspot at the moment!). Although some bars and cafes have reopened and abiding by all the rules, some of the customers do not and it makes me nervous, very nervous. I went to my local bar when they first reopened, I wanted to support them, but someone came and stood right next to me at my table, chatting to someone across the way, no mask, no distancing, I got up and walked out. So far I have not returned. Next week the local campsite is reopening, I do not like it, not at all. Our numbers for positive cases are currently rising, I find it all scary. I wish I had been back in the UK with family when this craziness started. 

I tried to take the opportunity to work on images from within the home, but got frustrated, cannot seem to find enough light, cannot seem to up get a decent grip of my RX100iii, (I think its just me, but seem to end up with noise, noise and more noise), I wanted to tether to my laptop but sonyplay (or whatever it is called), believe it or not will not run in Portugal so can not use the bluetooth capability! Everything is frustrating me. 

Take care, stay safe and stay sane. 

Jenny 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

when I was doing brochure work for Holiday companies I usually used Luton airport along with hordes of fairly inexperienced travelers. Remember Court Line? As we all approached passport control on the way back, all too many put down their hand baggage consisting of clanking bottles of duty-free as they fished for their passports. The area had unforgiving hard floors. On most flights there was at least one arrival put their bag of duty free down a bit "clumsily" with ensuing disaster. Your mishap with the bottle of Rioja brings back that awful sinking feeling. We've all done it  at least once and once is quite enough!

Edited by Robert M Estall
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, george said:

Good morning Edo, 
just read your blog post and it resonated with me. It is very difficult, I think, when living on your own during this 'crisis'. I have pretty much perfected having a conversation with myself and not letting it spiral into an argument ! I am struggling, I have to be honest, really struggling. Having no contact with people from one day to the next is so hard. People message and say, "how are you doing, are your ok?" "yes, yes, I am fine, same old", but it is not, it is hard and I do not want people to worry, so say everything is fine. 
I go to the shops maybe once in 10 days, I try to get out for a walk but do not always feel inclined. Here in my coastal spot of Portugal the tourists are arriving and second home owners (mainly from Lisbon......a COVID hotspot at the moment!). Although some bars and cafes have reopened and abiding by all the rules, some of the customers do not and it makes me nervous, very nervous. I went to my local bar when they first reopened, I wanted to support them, but someone came and stood right next to me at my table, chatting to someone across the way, no mask, no distancing, I got up and walked out. So far I have not returned. Next week the local campsite is reopening, I do not like it, not at all. Our numbers for positive cases are currently rising, I find it all scary. I wish I had been back in the UK with family when this craziness started. 

I tried to take the opportunity to work on images from within the home, but got frustrated, cannot seem to find enough light, cannot seem to up get a decent grip of my RX100iii, (I think its just me, but seem to end up with noise, noise and more noise), I wanted to tether to my laptop but sonyplay (or whatever it is called), believe it or not will not run in Portugal so can not use the bluetooth capability! Everything is frustrating me. 

Take care, stay safe and stay sane. 

Jenny 

I can identify with this. I keep telling myself how lucky I am: I have a roof over my head, food to eat and something to drink (the ‘recycle’ bin seems to be filling up with empty beer cans. Surely they can’t all be mine?). I can pay my bills, and I’m not living with an abusive partner. So far, so good. But I’m still fed up, and motivation is lacking. I’m working on a writing project… though sitting in a chair, staring at a laptop screen, is ‘writing’ only in the most optimistic sense!

 

Had a ‘socially distanced’ session last night: drinking wine with my oldest friend, while watching the sun go down. A couple of hours of animated conversation have revitalised my thoughts, and reminded me how much I need human interaction.

 

Jenny, you say that people in Portugal are forgetting about staying two metres apart, and that you would prefer to be in UK. Well, tomorrow all the ‘inessential’ shops will be re-opening. While some people will keep their distance, many others won’t… and I’m concerned that the numbers of infections and deaths will start to rise again… 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

Good morning, all!

 

https://edostrange.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-few-more-questions.html

 

Stay safe.

 

Edo

Sorry about the Rioja, Ed.

Just to add insult to injury, we had a lovely undropped bottle of 1970 Ygay yesterday. Perhaps I should tell the "good things that happened today" thread about that.

Edited by spacecadet
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, John Morrison said:

 

Had a ‘socially distanced’ session last night: drinking wine with my oldest friend, while watching the sun go down. A couple of hours of animated conversation have revitalised my thoughts, and reminded me how much I need human interaction.

 

 

I am having dinner with some friends this coming week, in a restaurant, we are being given a private room (sounds posh ;) ), and I am looking forward to it immensely but also with some trepidation. There are two small children going, I must try not to shriek if one wants to sit on my lap haha. But you are right, times like that remind us so much of how we need that interaction, but if someone had asked me three months ago I would of told them how happy I am with my own company! How little did I know. Good luck with the writing. And we must all hope there is not a second surge.....but I am stocking up on loo roll just in case 😂

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, george said:

if someone had asked me three months ago I would of told them how happy I am with my own company!

 

I've always thought of myself as 'good company'... able to hold up my end of a conversation. But you can have too much of a good thing!

 

I've heard my own thoughts, day after day, and I'm a bit bored with them now...

  • Love 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Robert M Estall said:

 Remember Court Line? 

 

If they were the airline that used the horrible pink coloured aircraft that flew out of Luton, yes. That was a very long time back, late 60's or early 70's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's the one! They had pastel pink ones, pastel green ones and another; I forget exactly but I think it was pastel yellow. BAE 111s. The stewardesses had similar coloured uniforms which often were not matched to the aircraft colour. I even liked the mixed colours. They copied the idea from a Texan airline.Court Line were the first cheap flight operators to order new aircraft. I quite liked the colour schemes but clearly we differ on that one. At least it was a departure from corporate logos. The trimmed sandwiches packed into little trays in the seatback were not such a good idea but enabled them to do without a galley so they could fit an extra row of seats. Just before they went broke. they took delivery of two or three big wide bodied jets but I don't think they ever went into service. I must have made about 50 flights on those lollipop planes but fortunately had made a shift to another operator just before they went down. Just got lucky!

Edited by Robert M Estall
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lol, Edo! Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

My dear mother didn’t swear. Well...almost didn’t. Until she dropped that egg or knocked the quart of milk over onto her freshly mopped and waxed floor. Then she said, “Weeelll, s**t!!” In a voice that expressed the uttermost disgust and frustration.

I must say occasionally I’ve carried on the tradition. Like the morning I was so engrossed sorting through the mail I’d just taken from the mailbox that I tripped over the curb and luckily fell onto the lawn instead of the concrete driveway.

Try it. It helps. You must say it with gusto and a curl to your lip.
Loved the blog.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.