My dad had three constants in his life – his love for my Mom, his friendship with an old fisherman nicknamed Curly, and his love for a good deal. He loved to go to flea markets and garage sales and NEVER paid the asking price. If someone had something marked a quarter he would offer a dime. More than once I would walk away embarrassed. He often went on his “deal hunts” with Curly.

Curly was Dad’s friend before he married my Mom. He was Polish and looked a lot like Popeye. He even wore an old captain’s hat. Years of fishing in the sun shaped his face. When I see the word grizzled I think of him – tan, wrinkled, stray whiskers. After his wife died he would come down from Michigan in the winter to stay with my parents in Florida. He would stay until his son Gary called to tell him the salmon were running and then he would go back north. They would all play cards in the kitchen with Curly and my Dad cussing and fussing like an old married couple. If the cards were not going his way curly would threaten to put a Polish curse on you.

One time he and my dad came home from town with a huge burgundy recliner in the back of my dad’s truck. He had purchased it from some guy selling chairs on the side of the road. It matched absolutely nothing in my mother’s living room which was rather small (the week before he had purchased 3 cases of pureed beets cheap – Mom was still mad about that because even the dog wouldn’t eat them) and they unloaded it onto the driveway.

My Mom met Dad on the front porch and told him he would not bring the chair in the house. Mom stood on the steps and was still shorter than Dad but height was not a factor in this discussion. Dale and I were out in the yard and could not hear the exact words but knew from the body language and gestures, things were not going to go the way Dad wanted them to go. We decided to stay out of the way – we busied ourselves looking as though we were hard at work pulling weeds. This went on for about twenty minutes. The entire time my parents were arguing about he ugly chair Curly was sitting in said chair with his Captain’s cap pulled down over his face and his feet up. He knew he was going to be helping Dad load the chair back in the truck.

In a few moments my dad headed back towards the driveway and for the first and only time I can remember the two men SILENTLY loaded the chair, got in the truck and drove off. Dale and I made ourselves scarce til supper. We all played cards that night but nothing was said about the chair. The only hint that something had happened was that Curly would cut his eyes back and forth between my parents and then rub his chin like he was going to rub the whiskers off.

Even Popeye knew when to keep quiet around Mom. I think there must have been one of those Polish curses on the chair.

Roughly translated it means “times gone by” . My daughter went to a New Years party tonight and before she left I gave her a ziplock bag containing a piece of chocolate, a dollar, and a piece of wood. I had to explain the customs of Hogmanay night (the Scottish New Year) to her.

Years ago my Grandmother gave my father a piece of coal. On New Years Eve she would make him go outside right before midnight and after midnight he could come in carrying a bottle of whiskey and the coal and some coins. We’ve Americanized it some since those years but it is called “first-footing the house”. The first person through the door has to have items that symbolize prosperity, enough to eat, and heat for the home for the next year. Once, an uncle came into my Grandmother’s house before my Grandfather had a chance to “first-foot and he had nothing – that was the year the Great Depression began.

There are several ideas about the meaning of Hogmanay but the one I was taught was Holy Month and it had religious significance though it started way before Christianity came to the Scots. The early celebrations had folks dancing around fires and today they still have torch processions in some Scottish cities. It symbolizes bringing the light to the new year and leaving the darkness in the past. People often go in groups to each other’s houses “first-footing” the home and eating and drinking. Since this was done on foot it was probably a lot safer that our modern American celebrations which tend to end up with someone driving impaired.

A tour guide told me that the Celtic crosses that we see all over Scotland with the circle around the intersection originated with Saint Patrick who was trying to convert the pagans. He used the circle with the cross to impress the pagan sun and moon worshippers with the importance of the Cross.

Our tradition of making New Years resolutions comes from the Hogmanay tradition. The idea was to begin the new year with something good and leave all the bad of the past year behind. Though I don’t think haggis will ever catch on here it’s surprising to learn how many of our traditions come from people I’m proud to claim as ancestors.
The traditional New Years football games can even be traced to Scotland. In Orkney they play a game called the “ba”. At one in the afternoon Christmas day and New Years day a leather ball is thrown by a local official into a crowd of about two hundred folks divided by family loyalty into two groups, “uppies” and “doonies”. At the signal of the church chimes the leather ball is thrown and the two groups fight to move the “ba” up or down the street. I can’t imagine two hundred hungover Scots fighting over a leather ball and wouldn’t want to be in their way! Shop owners have shutters closed and cars, small children, and elderly folks stay well out of the way.

The original Auld lang Syne lyric is from a poem by Robbie Burns that contained more verses and seemed a little sadder to me though with the same general sentiments as the two verses we sing – remembering the past, and drinking a toast with friends.

I have tried and tried and can’t remember if we first-footed the house last year. Our luck wasn’t great this year so I’m making sure. My daughter will first-foot the house. A little history lesson, a tradition passed on, and a wish for my family and friends. May we all have enough next year. God bless and goodnight!

My last post, I talked about wishing for time, and I think I’m going to get some today! It’s not even 6:30 a.m. so I haven’t gotten the kids up yet and it looks wet out but not too bad. I checked out the radar on intellicast though and there looks to be a huge area of snow headed our way. The thermometer on my back porch says 40 but the weather report says it is just going to get colder. The school closings north and west of us are streaming across the bottom of the screen so I will just keep watching. My school is in town but my kids’ school has a large rural population so I expect they will decide to close first.

Growing up in Michigan snow and ice were inconveniences that made getting to school and work more troublesome but it had to really be bad for us to miss. I remember mornings when everyone on our street helped push each others’ cars out to the main road where the salt trucks and snow plows were already out working. I remember one year when the snow drifted as high as our roof in the corner by our front porch and of course we built a snow fort that we could actually get inside.

Now that I’m grown, I still get excited at the prospect of snow. Our Christmas tree is up, but looks sad and naked, it would be a good day to decorate it and make some soup.

It looks like we will be going to school after all but I suspect we will be coming home early. I’m glad I’m not the one responsible for making these decisions. I would worry more about everyone trying to get home if it gets bad. Everyone will be excited and a lot of kids won’t show up at all.

I will bring home things to work on and read and hopefully get a latte on the way home. Then I will take a minute! Be careful out there everyone!

All the Web 2.0 apps out there and the productivity suites and all of the wonderful things you can find on google and ebay and yet nothing that gives us more time. I know this is kind of a silly post but when the holiday season starts approaching it always seems that I am running as fast as I can just to stay in place and usually not even managing that.

I wish there was a time store with a drive through window (which would save time of course!). You could even buy gift cards there and give them to your friends and family for Christmas! I’d like an extra hour of sleep, two hours of uninterrupted work time, an extra day to catch up on laundry, and maybe a few “free” days just to set aside for whatever I want in the future. I could use a whole day at a time or maybe divide it up and use it as needed. How about a few extra hours added to a good time. You could pay them back by subtracting them from a bad time.

I purchase minutes for my daughters trac phone. Maybe I could buy some extra ones and keep them for myself.

I’d like some time for playing with Toufee (on a faster connection than I have at home LOL) and time to work on a blog strictly for the computer lab. I’d also like some time to work on learning more about creating themes for WordPress and I’d like to learn about Apple-scripting. I would also like to work more with html and css.

If anyone has any spare time I would gladly pay you Tuesday …..

Well my maple-pumpkin pie is in the oven, the dressing is in the pan, ready to bake and Dale will make fruit salad while the dressing is baking before we go to Miss Billie’s and feast with friends.  Right before we leave I have to whip the cream (the best part is adding maple syrup to the whipped cream to go with the pie.  Yum! I’ll call my brothers in awhile – I miss them especially on the holidays.

Oak Park Methodist Church had free Thanksgiving dinner for the community for the last two years, but not this year.  The folks who were the core group for it have moved on due to marriage, life changes, and whatever else.  I hate that it didn’t survive.  It was my favorite thing that the church did.  There are several dinners in the community this time of year but this one and one other were the only ones that happened on Thanksgiving Day and that made it more special to me.  People should have somewhere fun to go on thanksgiving. People from the community that we had never seen came, but so did some of the church members – hope someone saw about them this year.

I’m thankful for Dale being here and doing well after such a bad summer.  His recuperation has been long and he still has a long way to go but he is putting on weight and eats all the time.  The only time he feels bad is right after dialysis – his blood pressure drops to about 80/50 and it takes at least til the next day for him to start feeling good again.  No dialysis today – just good friends and good food!  Have a happy holiday everyone!