Where's Thanksgiving Dinner!?!

WHAT!?!

No annual Turkey Dinner at Sallisaw’s First United Methodist Church!?!

That information disrupted my day totally. I was in a tizzy! What to do? What to do?

It was panic-attack time. The holidays do not officially arrive until Sallisaw’s First United Methodist Church holds its annual Thanksgiving Dinner. I’ve lived here 35 years and have had 35 First United Methodist Church turkey dinners.

In fact, I owe the church one fork. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow, one year, I got away with a Methodist fork. It’s been in my pickup truck for years. I have good intentions of giving it back some day.

When informed by the First United Methodist Church secretary via phone that there would be no turkey dinner, I think I screamed but the nice lady quickly informed me, “It’s OK. The ladies at First Assembly have taken over the dinner.”

A call to First Assembly nearly caused another panic.

“WHAT?” the church secretary responded. I think I scared her. I think she immediately envisioned herself having to roast 200 turkeys and whip up a whole lot of pumpkin pies. “No. No. No,” she told me.

But then where was Sallisaw’s community turkey dinner? Daughter already had tickets, she just didn’t tell me where it was.

First Assembly secretary called me back. I have discovered a new technique. If you need an answer to a question, scare the subject to whom you have posed the question. They will find the answer very quickly.

“The dinner is at Oakridge Assembly,” she told me.

At last, my quest for a turkey dinner had reached its goal. I called the church, and took photos of the ladies cooking, and I just finished eating there. (I need a nap!) It was delicious.

But the United Methodist Women (UMW) surrendering their Thanksgiving aprons still puzzled me. I called Anne Bottorff of the UMW at Sallisaw’s First United Methodist Church.

“We hated giving it up,” she said. “We truly did. It was a heart-rending thing but there comes a time when you just have to quit.”

For 43 years, the UMW ladies have been cooking Sallisaw’s community Thanksgiving dinner. The money raised went to their many missions and projects.

“We truly struggled with the decision,” Anne explained “but we're aging, we’ve lost some people, and the high number of meals was overwhelming. The cleanup was horrendous and the recuperation was, well, long.”

I countered, “It was a tradition!”

“Yes,” Anne said. “That’s the funny part. It is a community tradition.”

But, she concluded with, “I’m tired.”

OK. I get it. I understand. Even after cooking my own family’s Thanksgiving dinner for some 40 or so years, I had the same reaction. I told them, “I’m tired,” and I handed the dinner over to Darling Daughter, who has spent the last week planning that family Thanksgiving dinner. Thank goodness for those we can hand over the traditions too.

And thank you to the ladies of the UMW for 43 years of good eating and friendship. I promise I’ll bring the fork back, some day.

Unhappy Hubby's Tales about Wives

Oh dear. As I write this, it is almost Friday the 13th. No bad luck I hope. Oh well. . .

Oh well. . .for my guest author today. Ha.

Several of my friends like to tell jokes by email, some of which cannot be published in mixed company and before youngsters who know how to use a computer, and which one of them doesn’t now days?

The following friend and author must have had a bad day, or an argument with spouse, or maybe was just in a bad mood, because all he wanted to do was tell bad jokes about wives.

Read, laugh out loud, but DO NOT email me. I didn’t write the following. He did!

Avocados

 A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk and if they have avocados, get six.”

A short time later the husband comes back with six cartons of milk. The wife asks him, "Why did you buy six cartons of milk?"

He replied, "They had avocados."

If you're a woman, I'm sure you're going back to read it again! Men will get it the first time.

My work is done here.

Water in the Carburetor 

Wife: "There is trouble with the car. It has water in the carburetor."

Husband: "Water in the carburetor? That's ridiculous."

Wife: "I tell you the car has water in the carburetor."

Husband: "You don't even know what a carburetor is. I'll check it out. Where's the car?”

Wife: "In the pool."

Frightening Statistic
This is a frightening statistic, probably one of the most worrisome in recent years.

Twenty-five percent of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness.

That’s scary. It means 75 percent are running around untreated.

The Phone

A young man wanted to get his beautiful blonde wife something nice for their first wedding
anniversary. So he decided to buy her a cell phone. He showed her the phone and explained to her all of its features.

Meg was excited to receive the gift and simply adored her new phone.

The next day Meg went shopping. Her phone rang and, to her astonishment, it was her husband on the other end.

"Hi Meg," he said, "How do you like your new phone?"

Meg replied, "I just love it! It's so small and your voice is clear as a bell, but there's one thing I don't understand though."

"What's that, sweetie?" asked her husband.

"How did you know I was at Wal-Mart?" 

He Must Pay

Husband and wife had a tiff.

Wife called up her mom and said, "He fought with me again, I am coming to live with you."

Mom said, "No darling, he must pay for his mistake. I am coming to live with you.”
 

Today's Short Reading from the Bible

From Genesis: "And God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the earth."

Then He made the earth round...and He laughed and laughed and laughed!

And so we dedicate this week’s blog to our Unhappy Hubby Writer, who is going to have lots and lots of bad luck when it comes to his own wife. Oh dear.

Grandma's Halloween

Halloween! I love Halloween. I don’t love Halloween because it’s scary or because I like to dress up as somebody odd. I love Halloween because I’m a grandma.

I love Halloween because I got to dress up my granddaughter when she was little. One year she was Tinkerbell. I made that costume and am proud of it. One year she was an upscale witch. We went to a resale shop and found a fancy, tiny, formal dress that, combined with a witch’s hat and a broom, made my granddaughter the best dressed witch in the west. One year she wanted to be an M and M.

Hum. Made that costume, but had a bit of a hitch while ironing it for the final presentation on Oct. 31. That’s when son walked by and made the comment, “Uh mom, you got the M on backwards.” Oops. Had to start from scratch.

And that’s why I love Halloween. It’s called grandchildren.

Being a grandma is the greatest job in the world. I, and other grandparents, have noticed that parents do not understand this attitude. Parents are just happy when the grandparents agree to take on the child overnight, or longer. We grandparents tell them that they will change their attitude in the future, when the parents become grandparents themselves. They don’t believe us. But, without exception and I mean WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every parent I know who became a grandparent has recognized that new attitude.

“It’s a whole new world.” Yes it is.

Now, however, my grandchildren are all grown up, and I don’t even want to know what they do on Halloween. That might really scare me. But they have children of their own now. Unfortunately, most of them are too far away to come visit this great-grandma.

And the one who lives near, my 2-year-old great-grandson Jarek, has a closely related grandma. That is my Darling Daughter. Darling Daughter has discovered the greatest job in the world. She loves being a grandma. Darling Daughter likes to be called Grams. And Grams has discovered the joy of Halloween – the grandchild.

I got this text this week (only slightly edited) from Darling Daughter, otherwise known as Grams:  “Jarek is going trick-or-treating. He will be coming to your house. I will be there. How exciting!!! I have to get stuff to give him. I’m happy happy happy!”

No doubt I am going to be in big trouble for reporting the above, but it was so cute I couldn’t resist. I can still be proud of my Darling Daughter, especially now that she’s a grandma.

But hey. I have plans too. It’s called Halloween on Elm Street. It’s from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday in Sallisaw. And I will be there. I will be there at the Friends of the Library booth and maybe even hang out a little with the KXMX gang who will also have a booth. Now I’m excited. Because I plan to tell every little kid who comes by, dressed up as an M and M, or a witch, or Tinkerbelle, that this grandma thinks they are the greatest and have the best costume ever! And Grandma wishes them Happy Halloween. And, I hear Jarek plans to stop by too. Woohoo!

He Is a Hero

A new television show on public television has captured my heart. It’s called “Home Fires.”

This television show is described as a period piece, which dramatizes how the women in Britain responded to the outbreak of World War II. The heartbreaking center of this, to me, captivating drama, depicts the women’s response not just to the war, but to the fact that their men - their husbands and sons – had to go fight that war.

As they send their men off to fight, their worry and sadness makes my own insides clinch.

I am the mother of two veterans, and a grandmother with only one grandson, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan three times. I know the terror those women must have felt. I know how they feared the knock on the door, the ringing of the telephone, the delivery of the telegram.

I remember the fear the mothers and family members fought off when Operation Desert Storm began so many years ago. I remember holding in my arms the sobbing mother of one young man who was in the thick of it in Iraq.

We fought it off that paralyzing fear by starting a support group. That support group raised money, collected the name and address of every military person with county connections, and made sure that person had a message or package from our own home fires every week. They wrote back, and said it helped. Those efforts of support certainly helped us survive the fear of losing a loved one in war.

But now, we have lost one of our own. Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler died Oct. 22, wounded in a raid in Afghanistan. A career soldier, Sgt. Wheeler is from Roland and is a graduate of Muldrow High School.

Once again, insides clinch. My head hangs in sorrow. Tears well in the eyes. I know members of this man’s family.

“He ran toward the gunfire,” Ash Carter, Department of Defense secretary, told the media.

We always send our best, don’t we? My heart, our hearts, are heavy.

When I spoke with that family member, there was little I could say to ease that burden. I did the best I could. “He helped save 70 people,” was all I could muster.

“Yes,” that person said. “His four sons will always remember him as a hero.” Sgt. Wheeler has four sons and a baby, and he helped save 70 persons who were to be murdered. And he ran toward the gunfire.

He is a hero. He is one of our own.

The Squirrely Squirrel in My Back Yard

Does Halloween cause critters to behave badly? Or, perhaps more correctly – to behave weirdly?

I, and almost everyone else we suppose who hangs up a bird feeder, has an ongoing war with squirrels. I have been battling squirrels who like to feloniously snitch the feed from my bird feeders. Not only do they snatch the food, they also destroy the feeders. Two have hit the ground so far. Those dang squirrels ate through the cords by which my best feeder hung, causing it to crash and spill seeds everywhere. Those toothsome little devils gnawed right through the plastic of the second feeder.

In an effort to protect my birds, who used to flock to my feeders, I tried a tactic found in a bird magazine. They advised I feed the squirrels elsewhere. The magazine suggested some corn on the cob be hung from bungee cords no less, from a different tree. The author suggested a delightful display of squirrels trying to climb down a bungee cord to get to the corn would result in endless hours of entertainment.

Maybe that author’s squirrels are dumb, but my country squirrels are not. They have not yet tried to crawl down that bungee cord. And they still go after the easier bird feed.

So, I now feed my birds only when I’m home so I can protect their food.

And that’s when I spotted the squirrely squirrel.

The Urban Dictionary defines squirrely as mild insane, unpredictable and jumpy, and nutty, as resembling a squirrel looking for nuts.

All of which applied to this particular squirrel. This squirrel was jumping up and down in my back yard. Way up and down. Like on a trampoline up and down. It looked like it could have been hanging from a bungee cord, bouncing up and down. Except, it was on its own feet, and hopping up and down as fast as it could, on the ground.

There was not bird feeder nearby. There was no corn cobs hanging over its head. There was nothing, like a dog or cat, seeking it skinny little body for lunch. This squirrel was simply in my back yard jumping up and down like crazy. Mildly insane? Possibly yes. Unpredictable and jumpy? Absolutely! Looking for nuts? There wasn’t a nut in sight.

I decided this was simply a squirrely squirrel. Maybe it was enjoying our glorious fall season. Maybe it was practicing how to reach those corn cobs. Or my bird feeders. Maybe it was planning some strange Halloween party. Or maybe it was just happy to be alive. I’d like to think that.

The squirrely squirrel hasn’t been seen since. And my bird feeders are still hanging in their original spaces and still feeding the lovely birds.

But I am worried now about my squirrely squirrel. I hope it has recovered, if need be, from whatever was bothering it. Or, if it was simply happy, and jumping up and down with the pure joy of being alive, go for it squirrel. I might come out in the back yard and join you.

Spiders Are Mommies Too!

October is a lovely month, with Halloween looming at the end of the month. Halloween doesn’t scare me, but some of its characters do.

No, not afraid of witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, mummies, ghosts, etc., all those characters that pop up in miniature size looking for candy on our front porches.

What I really fear is, gulp, the spider! And spiders and spider webs seem to be in abundance on Halloween.

Arachnophobia is a fear most people suffer from, particularly women. Yep, even me I confess. But when you grow up and live in the country, surrounded by woods and fields, you sort of become used to the little eight-legged creepy crawlies. In the fall they all seem to want to come in and set up housekeeping with you. Uh, I’m not really OK with that.

More recently, one crawled into the KXMX building right here in town. Don’t know what this spider was thinking, but the dude got himself trapped in the air conditioning vent over the toilet in the women’s restroom. Well, that was a mistake.

Can you imagine what the woman sitting there thought when she heard that scrabbling around above her head, and then little pieces of dust began to fall from the vent? Uh, yeah. She ran.

And that circumstance resulted in a full-blown assault by the men in the building, who had to resort to dismantling the vent and using a vacuum cleaner to remove that dumb and doomed spider. And no woman would go in that restroom until it was proven that said spider was dead and in the vacuum cleaner bag. It was confirmed, thank goodness.

So, when I took a break on a sunny afternoon, out the back door of our KXMX building, and saw a spider sitting on the sidewalk, I thought, “Oh oh. You’re in trouble.” I must also confess that I have, number one, an insatiable curiosity about the natural world, and, number two, this thing about killing other critters. 

I don’t like it. Don’t want to do it if at all possible. There are a few exceptions. The spider in the bathtub had to go last week, and that copperhead snake under the horse hay did have to be dispatched. In my own defense I did let the garter snake escape when I mowed the lawn last Saturday.

And I saw nothing wrong with this thumbnail-sized spider on the back sidewalk. Until I looked closer. Spider seemed to have warts. Well, that was unusual. I sort of nudged spider with foot, and she dispersed. She dispersed into a 1,000 teeny tiny spiders, all smaller than a pinhead. They scattered everywhere. Oh, it dawned on me. This was a mommy spider and her offspring. I wondered if this was the kind of spider who was eaten by her offspring. So I gave mommy spider another nudge to see if she was alive, and she ran, followed by a 1,000 baby spiders. So Mom Spider lived and raised 1,000 babies on her back. Poor thing. 

Can’t imagine raising thousands. Three was bad enough!

A check on the internet suggested this may be a wolf spider and babies. But Mrs. Wolf was way too close to the back door. And entry into that back door meant 1,000 baby wolf spiders roaming KXMX, which, as discussed above, is unacceptable and opens the door to death by vacuum cleaner.

So, I herded spiders. Yes. I conducted a wolf spider roundup and tried to drive Mrs. Wolf and all her many children away from the back door. I was sort of successful. Mrs. Wolf scurried away, hauling some children on her back while others tried to follow in her eight footsteps. I could only hope she didn’t return and try to gain entrance to the building where the arachnophobes live.

It was my good deed for the day, although now that I think of it, I suspect the arachnophobes would just as soon I had stepped on Mrs. Wolf and all her offspring, leaving one-thousand-and-one less things to fear on Halloween.

Goodbye Mr. Stites

With great sadness and a heavy heart we wish goodbye to one of Sallisaw’s greats, J.T. Stites.

I always called him Mr. Stites, even though I’ve known him for 36 years. I called him Mr. Stites because I had great respect for this retired educator and legislator who was also a good friend.

Mr. Stites was principal at Sallisaw High School when all three of my kids attended and graduated there. In fact a couple of my kids may not have graduated without his help. I’m pretty sure he had a hand in getting them their high school diplomas. And I say that with a grin, kids. Now my boys are engineers.

Thank you Mr. Stites.

Darling Daughter has a memory too, about skipping out of high school.  She recalled, “He asked me where I was, and I said, ‘I skipped out.’ He said, ‘Well, since you told me the truth, “I’m not going to do anything about it.’”

Daughter said she then decided, “Well, from now on I’m going to tell the truth.”

Thank you Mr. Stites.

I have my own Mr. Stites story. Once, while on break from the state legislature, Mr. Stites stopped at a barbershop on Oak Street for a haircut. To do so, he had to take off his new OU ball cap, a gift from his son. Everybody got to talking about politics or whatever, and Mr. Stites left the barbershop without that very important OU hat.

Back in Oklahoma City he realized his OU hat was missing but he knew just where it was. Well, who you gonna’ call? He called me, at my desk right across the street from the barbershop.

“Save my hat,” he said. “It was a gift. I’ve got to have that hat back.”

That was no problem. The barber knew where that hat belonged. I retrieved it and delivered it to Mr. Sties on his next trip home. And he told that story to everybody we ever met at the same time.

Shannon Vann, Sallisaw businessman and former mayor, has a Mr. Stites story. Vann is a 1986 Sallisaw High School graduate. He recalled, “Mr. Stites took over a geometry class one day when the teacher was out. I think he enjoyed teaching more than being a principal.

“One day we were late getting back to class after lunch,” Vann related. 

Laughing, he continued, “We ran right through those rotunda doors. Of course Mr. Stites was standing right there. We nearly ran over him. He called out all of our names before we got down the hall, and we all had to go back and tell him why we were late.”

Daughter, Vann and others reported that Mr. Stites always remembered your name, no matter how long ago you graduated. Daughter reported, “Every time I saw him he asked how my brothers were, by name.”

Darren Girdner here at The Mix recalls his high school days with Mr. Stites. He recalled, “I’d get in trouble and get sent to the principal’s office. He’d ask me what happened and I’d tell him. Then he would say, ‘Well, just sit here for while then go back to class and they’ll think we did something about it.”

Bill Aydelott, now age 84, served as Mr. Stites assistant principal from 1974 to 1987. He has many Mr. Stites stories.

He said of Mr. Stites, “He was the most moral person I know, the most honest, the most modest.”

The assistant principal remembered the two were attending a conference in Oklahoma City. After the meeting, Mr. Stites suggested a visit to watch the hotel’s entertainment. But Aydelott said he was tired and was going to bed. 

About midnight the lights came on as Mr. Stites returned to the room.

“There’s a singer down there. He’s selling sausage,” Mr. Stites related. Aydelott said he found that hard to believe. He continued, “I got up and went down to breakfast the next morning. Mr. Stites was still asleep.”

Aydelott said he had to rethink the previous evening when the singer and sausage seller Jimmy Dean came into the restaurant and sat down at the table next to him.

“We had fun,” Aydelott said. “We had a good time. He’d tell stories on me too.”

Mr. Stites son, Tom, took a few minutes to recall his father’s stories. He related how he found it hard shopping with his dad, because everyone they met would visit. Tom Stites said, “Dad and I went into Walmart for a quart of oil. An hour later we left.” That’s because everyone they met wanted to visit and tell stories with Mr. Stites.

Tom Stites compares his father to the lead character in the classical movie, “it’s a Wonderful life.” That character is George Bailey, played by James Stewart. The movie points out how many lives are impacted when one good person does the right thing.

“I believe my dad was the George Bailey of our town,” he said. “He never said a bad word about anyone, and he helped everybody, even loaned them money.”

When cautioned by his family, Tom said his dad just replied, “Don’t worry. They’ll pay it back.”

Tom Stites said, “It’s incredible. I must have received 400 contacts and emails from people about their experiences with him. It’s unreal the people whose lives he touched. He had an incredible memory for students’ names and even the year they graduated. He was the richest man in town.”

Flags are at half-staff, hearts are heavy, tears are plentiful.

Goodbye Mr. Stites. We are going to miss you. But your stories will live on forever, as legends.