WE ARE A GENERATION THAT WILL NEVER COME BACK.

A generation that walked to school and then walked back.

A generation that did their homework alone to get out asap to play in the street.
A generation that spent all their free time in the streets with their Friends.
A generation that played hide and seek when dark.
A generation that made mud cakes.
A generation that collected sports cards.
A generation that found, collected and washed & Returned empty coke bottles to the local grocery store for 5 cents each , then bought a Mountain Dew and candy bar with the money.
A generation that made paper toys with their bare hands.
A generation who bought vinyl albums to play on record players.
A generation that collected photos and albums of clippings of their life experiences as a Kid.
A generation that played board games and cards on rainy days.
A generation whose TV went off at midnight after playing the National Anthem.
A generation that had parents who were there.
A generation that laughed under the covers in bed so parents didn't know we were still awake.
A generation that is passing and unfortunately it will never return no matter how hard we try.

 
I loved Growing up when I did. it was the best of times.

Wearing Pants - Jailed for Contempt of Court!!???

 

A women’s rights history moment: Helen Hulick was called to court as a burglary witness in November 1938. The 29-year-old — an innovative educator who pioneered auditory-verbal approaches to working with deaf children — arrived in her usual attire of a top and slacks.

But seeing slacks on a woman so greatly offended Judge Arthur S. Guerin that he would not allow Hulick to testify. Instead, he rescheduled her testimony and ordered her to wear a dress at her next appearance.

She refused. As the Nov. 10, 1938 issue of the L.A. Times reported, she stated: “You tell the judge I will stand on my rights. If he orders me to change into a dress I won’t do it. I like slacks. They’re comfortable.”

When she appeared in slacks once more, the judge chastised her for both attire and what he perceived as problems with her demeanor. “The last time you were in this court dressed as you are now and reclining on your neck on the back of your chair, you drew more attention from spectators, prisoners and court attaches than the legal business at hand,” Guerin said. “You were requested to return in garb acceptable to courtroom procedure. Today you come back dressed in pants and openly defying the court.

“The court hereby orders and directs you to return tomorrow in accepted dress. If you insist on wearing slacks again you will be prevented from testifying (…) But be prepared to be punished according to law for contempt of court.”

The Times quoted her response as follows: “Listen, I’ve worn slacks since I was 15. I don’t own a dress except a formal. If he wants me to appear in a formal gown that’s okay with me. I’ll come back in slacks and if he puts me in jail I hope it will help to free women forever of anti-slackism.”

Hulick returned wearing slacks, but this time, she also brought with her Attorney William Katz. Katz was armed with citations supporting her argument that she had the right to appear in the attire of her choice.

Judge Guerin held her in contempt of court nevertheless, sentencing her to five days in jail. There, she was forced to wear a denim prisoners’ dress. She was quickly released on her own recognizance, however, after her attorney declared they would be appealing the sentence.

As Hulick’s story garnered attention, hundreds of supporters sent letters of protest to the courthouse.

Finally, the Appellate Division overturned Judge Guerin’s contempt citation.

She continued to do amazing work throughout her career: In 1985, Lafayette College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree "for her work as teacher, scientist and pioneer in the field of auditory therapy,” and in 1988, when she was 80, the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf awarded her the organization's highest tribute, Honors of the Association.

Thank you, Dr. Hulick, for not only making a difference in so many students’ lives, but also for helping to free women of “anti-slackism” along the way.

Helen Beebe
Born	Helen Louise Hulick Beebe December 27, 1908 Easton, Pennsylvania
Died	March 18, 1989 (aged 80)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Beebe

Car Production 1950-2019

Top 10 Car Producing Countries    

1950-2019

 

 

America's Got Talent - REALLY!!

Dance Duo Surprises 'AGT' Judges With Unexpected Performance

Pasha and Aliona will shock you with their stunning dance!

 

Just Take A Moment To Think On These Things . . .

 

Maintenance Mechanics With a Sense of Humor!!

This is HILARIOUS!

After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form, called a "gripe sheet" which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots ("P") and solutions recorded ("S") by maintenance engineers:

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to: straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget

From Fact or Fiction:
We contacted UPS about the e-mail. We were surprised by the answer. Even UPS doesn't know if it's Fact or Fiction. The spokesperson did tell us, even UPS employees find it entertaining, but the one thing they do not joke about is safety. The company has not been able to verify the authenticity of the notes.

Remember it takes a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one. Reassurance for those of us who fly routinely in our jobs.

This Is Just TOOOOO Cute!! Baby Works Out With Rocky!!

 

A Little Boy With Enormous Power - The Power To Lift Spirits

Blessings to you from a Six year old!

 

One Students Insights On Being "Political Correct"

This young man - Brad Taylor - his thoughts on his school district,

 Rosemount high school in Rosemount, MN.

 

Ragged Old Flag - A Testament

 

Incredible Illusion!!

 

Life Lesson - On Sale In A Department Store?

 

Amazing What You See On The Road!!!

 

THE UNIVERSE - MIND BOGGLING!

It really shows how insignificant 

we are in relation to the universe. 

But we DO still really, really count!

 

Too Many Puns and a Groaner or Two!! These Are Really Good!!

She was just a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.


A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.


No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.


A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.


A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.


Atheism is a non-prophet organization.


The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.


Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.


John Travolta tested negative for coronavirus last night. Turns out it was just Saturday Night Fever.
The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out.


I saw an ad for burial plots, and thought to myself that's the last thing I need.


Intelligence is like underwear. It is important that you have it, but not necessary that you show it off.


Relationships are a lot like algebra. Have you ever looked at your X and wondered Y?


A courtroom artist was arrested today for an unknown reason, details are sketchy.


People are making end of the world jokes like there's no tomorrow.


Whatever you do, always give 100% - unless you're donating blood


What do you call a sleepwalking nun? Roamin’ Catholic.


What did Snow White say when she came out of the photo booth? Someday my prints will come.


A girl said she recognized me from her vegetarian club but I’d never met herbivore.


I've always had an irrational fear of speed bumps, but I'm slowly getting over it.


If you're not supposed to eat at night, why is there a light bulb in the refrigerator?


Don't let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started out as a basket case.


A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”


Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says, "Dam!”


Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.


Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, "I've lost my electron.” The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive.”


A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?", they asked, as they moved off. "Because,” he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.”


A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain ; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.”


A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.


Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man! This is so bad, it's good!) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Okay, you can stop groaning now!

"Reflections on Pearl Harbor"

John Guy writes: "What God did at Pearl Harbor that day is interesting and I never knew this little bit of history.

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time.

In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941— Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington, DC. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone.

He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?"

Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?

Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one:
The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two:
When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: 

Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or, God was taking care of America.

I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas -- he was a born optimist.

But any way you look at it -- Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver lining in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST.

Why have we forgotten? PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY! IN GOD WE TRUST."

Town Has Fun With Sign War

May 2021 

The Canadian town of Listowel (Ontario) has been embroiled in a war of words via business signs that has captivated local residents and people around the world. Not all signs are listed below, but a lot of them are!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56972907

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/sign-war-listowel-1.6005718

https://www.escape.com.au/destinations/north-america/canada/hilarious-sign-war-kicks-off-in-canada/news-story/e4ec6782ac16fec3901df0d89ccd4173

 

Mary Ball Washington - Our First President's Mom!

Original Article HERE

Mary Ball Washington, George’s single mother, 

often gets overlooked – but she’s well worth saluting

May 7, 2021 12.33pm EDT

By Martha Saxton
Mary Washington helped her son develop into the leader he became. While her son was the subject of several portrait artists, there is no record that Mary ever was. Stock Montage/Getty Images


On Mother’s Day, it is important and poignant to recall the hard life of Mary Ball Washington, who struggled – mostly alone – to raise our Founding Father. Historians have left us with inaccurate and mostly unpleasant accounts of her long and laborious years.

After George Washington’s death, historians canonized him and his mother, too.

But unlike George’s enduring sainthood, praise for Mary was short-lived. In the late 19th century, George’s biographers began interpreting the few shreds of evidence about Mary – almost all of it from George – to mean that she was overprotective, possessive and greedy.

By the 1950s she had become, in the word of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, a termagant, an ill-tempered shrew. The author, James Flexner, created a portrait of Mary as a woman insatiably hungry for money that she didn’t need, and intent on keeping George by her side. Other nasty myths still circulate alongside these: that she was illiterate, pipe-smoking, uncouth and slovenly.

We believe good journalism is good for democracy and necessary for it.Learn more

These poisonous portraits bear little resemblance to the industrious, worried, frugal, devoted and self-reliant woman who emerges from my research as a professor of history and women’s studies. I recently wrote a book about Mary Washington. In my research, I found that Mary’s challenging life was very different from the myths that grew up around her.

A view of the Rappahannock River as Mary Washington would have seen it from her front windows. Enrico Ferorelli, CC BY-SA

Daughter of a servant, mother of a hero

Mary was born in either 1708 or 1709; there are no records. Her father was an elderly, slave-owning planter and her mother was probably an indentured servant. By 12, she had lost her father, stepfather, mother and half-brother to death in the disease-ridden Chesapeake region.

From these terrible losses Mary acquired two parcels of land, a good horse and saddle, and three enslaved boys. She stayed in what had been her mother’s house, living with her older half-sister. There the shocked girl worked diligently to help manage the household and make herself indispensable.

She also grew into her role of slave-owner, and learned to extort work out of people who were enslaved. She began assuming the habits of Anglican piety in this mournful time, trying to subdue her feelings and resign herself to God’s mysterious will.

When she was about 22, she married Augustine Washington, a wealthy widower with two sons in Great Britain and a daughter in Virginia. Mary traded her duties on a small farm and the companionship of her affectionate half-sister for more expansive tasks as the mistress of a large plantation and marital obligations to an acquisitive, restless planter.

The couple had five surviving children: George, born in 1732; Elizabeth, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles. The growing family and many of their enslaved people moved three times, eventually settling across the Rappahannock River from the growing town of Fredericksburg.

Augustine died suddenly in 1743 when he was about 49 years old. George, the eldest, was 11, and the youngest was 4. Augustine left his best properties to his eldest sons by his first marriage, Lawrence and Augustine. Mary was allowed to stay in the Fredericksburg house but was to turn it over to George when he came of age at 21.

She received the same number of enslaved people she had brought to the marriage. If she wanted more, they were to come from those allotted to her other children – setting their desires at odds with hers. If she remarried, the executors could demand security to be sure her children would receive their full inheritances at 21. Failing that she would lose custody of them. She remained a widow all her years.

Single motherhood in the 1700s

With her income and resources seriously diminished because of the dispersal of Augustine’s properties, Mary set about making sure that her daughter and four sons had such education and polish as she could provide. Elizabeth learned the arts of serving tea, managing a household and decorative handwork.

Mary kept the young men in proper clothes and wigs. These could be expensive, costing as much as 3 pounds. That could have been about US$2,400 in today’s dollars, assuming the American pound was valued the same as the British pound at the time. The wigs had to be de-liced by enslaved people who would otherwise be doing field work.

Mary dissuaded George from going into the British Navy at 14 but failed to convince him not to join General Edward Braddock’s disastrous 1755 campaign. She nursed George back to health after the illness he suffered succeeding this battle and several other serious sicknesses, including smallpox.

She tried to imbue in her children her extensive practical and religious wisdom. She had some success, especially with George and Elizabeth, but none of her children became frugal. Despite the family’s straitened circumstances, Mary saw all of her offspring marry up. George married Martha Dandridge Custis, the richest woman in Virginia.

Surviving the Revolution

In the years before the Revolution, Mary, like almost all small farmers at the time, was poorer than ever and sometimes asked her extremely wealthy eldest son for small amounts of money. As he slid deeply into debt himself from his extravagances and expanding ambitions, he begrudged her the insignificant bits of cash she needed and insisted she could not be in want – a claim he repeated throughout her life.

George wrote in 1782, having not seen or been in touch with his mother for seven years, “confident I am that she has not a child that would not divide the last sixpence to relieve her from real [emphasis in the original] distress. This she has been repeatedly assured of by me … in fact she has ample income of her own.”

Mary lived through the long years of the revolution alone. In her last years, she struggled like all small farmers against debt and bad harvests. She, too, suffered from high taxes, severe shortages of corn and salt and the threat of smallpox. Her overseer, exploiting the vulnerability of an elderly woman, cheated Mary throughout the war.

George Washington bought his mother her final house in Fredericksburg when he took over the Ferry Farm. Enrico Ferorelli, CC BY-SA

Mary lived to see the revolution won and her son elected the nation’s first president. As George said, praising her in Fredericksburg at the end of the revolution, she led him to manhood in the absence of a father. Always sparing in her praise of worldly achievements, she gave him the compliment he probably most valued: that he had always been a good son. She died of breast cancer in August 1789 months after George became the nations’ first president.

Mother and son shared many traits

After some years of reflected hagiography, Mary‘s reputation began a precipitous decline in the late 19th century. Ideas about biography and psychology began changing. Nurture began competing with an earlier idea of people being born with an essential character that needed to unfold. Mothers, who in the antebellum period were described as self-sacrificing vessels of virtue holding the new nation together, began to be held responsible for facilitating – or not – their sons’ ambitions.

Male writers then saw evidence of Mary’s love for George – such as keeping him out of the British Navy – as possessiveness and interference with his glorious military destiny. They saw her requests for money as her irrational greediness, not his stinginess.

Male historians, even now, have never doubted that his exasperation with his mother was justified, nor have they tried to find out more about her circumstances. Instead, they agree that he desperately needed to free himself from her efforts to limit him before he could father our nation.

But mother and son were much alike in physical strength, in superb horsemanship, in irascibility, in penny-pinching, in the capacity for extraordinary persistence and in their strenuous, lifelong efforts to maintain a measure of equilibrium. I believe that without Mary’s brave, enduring and self-denying mothering, we would not have had the brave, enduring and self-denying man who led both the revolution and the optimistic experiment in governing that resulted.

How The Conversation is different
Every article you read here is written by university scholars and researchers with deep expertise in their subjects, sharing their knowledge in their own words. We don’t oversimplify complicated issues, but we do explain and clarify. We believe bringing the voices of experts into the public discourse is good for democracy.

Beth Daley
Editor and General Manager

And what's it like to have a michi? Well...

MICHI   -  1. n. Someone who doesn't do anything at all with their life.