Was amblin' around in the U.S. Government Printing Office Online Bookstore (bookstore.gpo.gov) and found a great site for kids.  Informative, colorful, lively, educational, ta da, ta da, etc.  The GPO Bookstore isn't bad itself for adults.  Reasonably priced books and CDs on practically any topic you might want to know more about concerning this country, statistics on topics ad infinitum, procedures for dozens of methods, etc.

For the kids, check out http://bensguide.gpo.gov/index.html.  They use a cartoonized Benjamin Franklin (one of the early nation's most prolific producers of information, gadgets, gizmos, and ideas) as the "proprietor" of the site.  There are games for students about money and how it's made and its properties, games about history, etc.  Well worth your while to check it out!  I spent 1.5 hours "playing" when I should have been working!!  FUN!

The burning of Atlanta scared the bejeebers out of me and I spent the entire fire in the lobby.  The usher kept pestering me to go sit down.  I’ll never know just what I said, or how he might have snickered behind his hand, but he let me stay there, peeking in the door occasionally, while Atlanta burned.

After Rhett didn’t give a d--- anymore, it was time to get the 400 pounds of flesh out of two seats.  Mammy (all 250 pounds) spilled over her seat and Mama, 18 months pregnant with Brother # 3, couldn’t move.  I have the most outrageous mental picture of the usher and the owner standing in the seats in front of Mama and Mammy, pulling on the women’s hands to get them standing on their numb feet.  Brothers #1 & 2 and I hooted with laughter (for which I’m sure we paid dearly), echoing in the, by then, empty theater, while we waited until parts below Mammy's and Mama's waists worked again.  To this day, whenever I see “Gone With The Wind,” I am reminded of the honor Mammy paid us by going to the movies with us.  She was so large, she couldn’t sit comfortably, nor did she have any desire to see most movies.  Mammy only saw three movies, at the theater, in her life.  The first was “Gone With The Wind,” the second was “Gone With The Wind,” and the third was, you guessed it, “Gone With The Wind.”  I was privileged to view that classic the third time with her.  I hope they have wider seats in heaven’s theater, so Mammy doesn’t have trouble going to see GWTW.

The last time I enjoyed an in-the-theater movie with Mama, I was 17 and announced that I would be going to see the “M” rated (remember those?!) “Doctor Zhivago.”  Didn’t ask if I could go, just stated that I was going.  Daring!  Mama wasn’t too sure about that (the attitude or the movie), but when it was revealed that she had also planned on going with a friend, she couldn’t very well fault me.  So she and her friend sat in front of my friend and me (you don’t sit in a movie with your mother when you’re 17!) through all the love scenes in “Doctor Zhivago” and I fell in love with steamy brown eyes for the first time.  Hey!  Maybe that’s why Better Half has brown eyes!

Mama wouldn’t have gone with us to see “Jurassic Park,” even if she had lived longer, but every time I “do” a theater movie with one of my kids, I think about what it took to get Mama into a theater.  I hope my children’s memories of me in the theater, with them, are as cherished.

Oh, by the way, one Mom and wife (or stay-at-home DAD and husband!) at $336.19  (even without the cost of living increases) per day for over fifteen years (at 1990 prices) comes to...., are you ready?.... $1,014,384.10!!

Got enough insurance to cover your family if you met your rewards on the way home from the grocery store?  Usually the winning lottery ticket should cover the tab, but mine must have gotten lost in the mail.  Maybe reconsideration of how much the stay-at-home Moms and Dads of the world are worth is in order.  Not just in financial terms, but in terms we can’t measure with a dollar sign. 

Looks like I really am worth more alive than dead!

            I’ve just about had all my tight blue jeans can stand of gaining weight.

            For a while, I gained 5 pounds a year after I turned 33 and started back to college for the fourth time.  I worked 60 hours a week and went to college full-time at night.  The weight gain was caused by eating a dozen lemon-filled doughnuts and drinking three cups of coffee each night while sitting still and studying.  The doughnuts were to keep the coffee from burning a hole in my stomach.  The coffee was to prevent severe damage to my forehead as it careened into the kitchen table while I sat and absorbed those 3” thick textbooks that contained all the information known to man since before he found fig leaves.  Osmosis of the written words through my skull was the best method of absorption.  Sleep stupor can rationalize anything.

            While I captured the sheep-skin, my family learned how to out-maneuver each other.  Fortunately, Baby Girl was 8 and able to take care of herself and keep her daddy’s tie straight and his colors matched.  It was a good education for both of them.  “Daddy, Mama would skin you alive if she even THOUGHT you were going outside in that purple plaid shirt with those red striped pants.”

            “It’d serve her right for not putting matching numbers on the labels so I’d know what went with what,” he would benignly reply.  “Besides, I was just taking the trash out, Miss Smarty-pants.”

            “That’s your briefcase in your hand, Dad.”

            She still uses that cleverly cultivated capability, of being able to make the stronger sex see how incapable they are at accomplishing certain tasks.  I called her husband one day to ask about our collective plans for the weekend.  He promptly replied, “Wait a minute, my social director is still in the bathroom.  I’ll have her call you.”  I was so impressed that he’d learned to pass the buck after only five years of marriage, but he resigned.  “Shoot, I learned when we were still in college how to manage time more efficiently.  I just give up, give in, and ask her where we are supposed to be and how she wants me to dress.  Saves time, saves energy and saves changing clothes before we go out.”

            Another foray into higher education began when Little Fella was only three.  Corporate downsizing offered the “learn a new trade” alternative to the daily traffic battle.  That alternative became a teaching certificate.  I’ve been a teacher since I was 15 months old and Brother #1 was born.  Someone had to teach each underling who was in charge.  So who was better qualified to “learn” them than a born teacher? 

            This time I learned quickly.  Start with a larger size pair of blue jeans instead of migrating at a latter date.  Acceptance, early on, is a virtue.  Unfortunately, my body and this accumulated adipose tissue have become such good friends that it’s hard to part with this unwanted load.

            Maybe I should just have a bagel and a PhD.

I've just returned from the most fascinating trip around the world that I've ever taken!  My Better Half was in the U.S. Army for a few years, so we traveled a little around northern Europe and the UK when he was stationed in Germany.  That made me think I was "worldly" and knew about other places.  But not much has thrilled me as much as seeing the places I saw tonight in a few hours!

My son found a site that I'd heard him talk about, but I hadn't taken the time to view with him.  It's a 3-dimensional view of the world.  Just pick the spot you want to visit. Finally did and BOY! what a trip.  These are satellite images that get more or less clear enough to tell which house is yours on your street (the more rural your location, the less clear the images; city locations are pretty clear).  Go to www.GoogleEarth.com and download the file.  It will take a few minutes and you will need quite a bit of room on your computer.  But if you have the space and the time, take the trip.  YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

First, look up your own house.  All trips should be started from your own front door.  Go by your local schools on your way to the nearest large airport where you begin your trip.  Even airports are fascinating from the air!  We viewed Buckingham Palace, near Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column.  But almost missed Scotland Yard and #10 Downing Street nearby.  Then plug in "Shakespeare's Birthplace" and you are whisked, virtually, across the countryside to Stratford upon Avon.  I didn't get to Scotland or Ireland or Wales tonight, but I'll be visiting them soon!

Next, check out Red Square in Moscow and The Great Wall of China.  When you can't find these places, either get out your Atlas or look them up on http://www.atlapedia.com.  Those are great references.  If you input the right characteristics that you'd like to see, you can see the crevices in the bottom of the Atlantic as you cross back to see New York City.  Even Ground Zero is there on Manhattan Island.  And Central Park.  And Kennedy International Airport.  And St. Vincent's Hospital that my son does billing for, part time, after school.  And, and, and...

A couple of years ago I was invited to present a Five Finger Paragraph workshop to 75 teachers at a Title I Dissemination Project Conference in Hyannis, MA.  Took my son along to use as a guinea pig for the teachers.  When we weren't presenting, we traveled around the area, spectulating where the Kennedy Compound might be located.  We were turned around at the entrance.  But I saw the entire compound from the air tonight, so I finally got my visit!

The Grand Canyon is just that -- Grand!!  And Disney World from an aerial or 3-D view is almost as fascinating as being there.  Check out New Orleans, before it was almost washed away.  Bourbon Street is still there.  These are pictures from a Spring time period in the recent past, 'cause the dogwood tree was in bloom in the picture of our house!

On our next trip, I think we'll visit the Andes, New Zealand, and Taiwan, on our way back to Wales!  This is one of the most educational resources I've come across in years.  Not only was it entertaining, but the navigational skills learned and the sense of direction gained (and history and demographics through Atlapedia) are well worth the time and hard drive space it will cost you to take the trip!  Have fun while you learn!

            My maternal grandmother died just after I turned 18 and had gone off to college.  I still miss her.

Mammy was the greatest grandmother a kid could have.   It didn’t matter which one of her fifteen grandchildren you were or when she saw her, ‘cause when you were with her, you were the most important person in the world, and the only grandchild that ever existed.

Mammy was rich.  She had a change purse that she always kept in her apron pocket and it was always full of money.  It may not have been more than five dollars, including coins and bills, but to a kid she was loaded. 

Mammy was child-full and fat.  Not just pleasantly plump, but fat.  She was about 5'5" but weighed about 260 pounds.  At least she was smaller than two of her three younger sisters.  Aunt Gladys dressed out at 410, but Aunt Nell only weighed 300.  So my Mammy was the lightweight.  Mammy had these titties that hung down to her waist.  Each of her nine children must have been well fed.  I guess after nine kids, any woman has a right to weigh 260 pounds.  Aunts Gladys and Nell didn’t have that excuse.  They were childless and fat.  Mammy was child-full.

 Mammy made the best quilts I’ve ever seen.  They weren’t these fancy-schmancy things that you find for $200-$400 at bazaars and craft shows.  They were made with love, not design, in mind.  My favorite has the little strips of cloth from every dress she made for my mother or me during one three-month visit with us.  The one with baby blue stripes was the dress Mama was wearing when she told me she was pregnant with Brother #3.  I kept looking at the front of that skinny sheath and wondering where the baby was gonna go.  Then there was the burnished gold strip from the dress Mama made for me before I spilled a whole bowl of cereal on the skirt.  The cereal didn’t matter, but the milk did.  It stained.  Mama had to sew a whole new skirt on that sucker. 

Mammy’s teeth were cool.  Most of the time, they lived in a glass beside the bed.  One day, Brothers # 1 & 2 flipped to see who would try them on.  An hour after breakfast, No. 2 brother was found crying, under Mama’s bed with Mammy’s bottom falsies wedged into his five-year-old mouth.

Mammy would give one of us a hand full of change, a six-pack carton of empty soft-drink bottles and the order to “go to the store and get me a six-pack of Pepsis.  They’ll help settle my stomach.  Oh, and get yourself a drink, too.”  Mine was always NEHI Grape.   Brother #1’s was always NEHI Orange.  Brother #2 was too little to go to the store by himself, so his was always a begged swallow at the bottom of a grape or orange. 

We thought Mammy was nuts to want to “settle her stomach” with one of those awful black drinks.  But all of our assurances of imbibing one of the syrupy “fruit” flavored ones never conned her.  I was twenty-five before I recalled Mammy’s prediction that only Pepsi would help settle her stomach.  After one too many slices of left-over parlor pizza, I suggested that we get us a Pepsi to “settle our stomachs.”  It only took twenty minutes to realize that the Pepsi did the job quite well.  Since “pep” is a Latin derivative dealing with one of our internal organs, is that the reason the stuff was named “Pepsi” to begin with?  Mammy was smarter than her elementary education ever gave her credit for.

I wounded Mammy unintentionally when I went to Tennessee to live with my aunt.  It was near Mammy’s house, but I would never spend the night at Mammy’s house.  I’d stay all day and play with the pigs, the chickens, jumping out of the hayloft, slipping through the chicken yard to the “outhouse,” running all over the farm and in general, having a blast, but when it got dark, I insisted on going “home” to Aunt Betty’s house.  I loved my Mammy deeply, and I would sleep with her any time, anywhere else, but not at her house.

It wasn’t until I was about eight that I admitted that the only reason that I wouldn’t spend the night at Mammy’s because there was no bathroom inside the house.  I probably hadn’t had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night since diaper days, but I was deathly afraid that I would have to potty in the middle of the night.  Which meant a trip through the chicken yard to the outhouse.  Having to do that during the day was enough of a stretch for a little kid, but that out-house was at the edge of my nightmares during the night.  I think I would have tinkled in my pants rather than go to the outhouse at night.  Even with the flashlight Mammy gave me.  Even with offers of more NEHI Grapes.  Even for a whole one of Aunt Mat’s egg custard pies lusciously cooked in her  wood-burning stove.  To go to the outhouse during the night would have meant going through Jericho’s domain. 

Jericho was Mammy’s rooster.  Although I could run past him quickly enough during the day, to try and miss the little piles of chicken poop on the wooden planks that led to the outhouse in the dark would have been little kid suicide.  I could vividly imagine slipping on the poop, plopping on the planks and passing out as Jericho did a tap dance on my pate.  Never occurred to me that chickens always went to roost at night and Jericho would be unavailable to join in my nightmare.  Didn’t matter, it was vivid enough without him.

When I admitted my fears to Mammy, she chuckled from the bottom of her fat apron and confided, “I’ve got a chamber pot that can solve that problem.”  A chamber pot, for those uninitiated to the finer points of camping out in the house, is a large pot, usually ceramic or porcelainized metal, with a lid and handles, in which one deposits bodily excretions and excrements when one is indisposed to travel great distances to a facility designed for such ablutions.  In other words, a potty away from the potty.

If you would eat real food, not this pretend crap that comes in cans or boxes or out of the freezer these days, you never went hungry at Mammy’s house.  She started lunch before breakfast, when she put on a huge pot of navy beans each morning.  Didn’t matter what else there was for dinner, navy beans were on the menu.  That was a holdover from when Granddaddy was alive and wanted, neh, required navy beans on the table three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  Anyway, pick the meat and she usually had it and a dozen or so bowls full of stuff on the table.  If it wasn’t eaten for lunch, she spread a tablecloth over it, (I thought to keep the food warm, but really to keep the flies out), and you had it for supper.

The only unkind word I ever heard pass from Mammy’s lips had something to do with Tennessee Ernie Ford.  Don’t know ‘til now what that word was, but one day when his show was on, she came in and turned the channel, because she didn’t want to hear him.  Said something about his character and more than one wife.  Since divorce was not in my realm of experience at that time, I never quite caught on to what she was talking about.  I just knew that his voice ranked up there even with Jesus’ and just behind Perry Como’s.

That’s not to say Mammy never said an unkind word.  Mammy had her prejudices as we all do, but they were not against people of color or a different nationality than her. Mammy’s were against her friends and relatives that lived differently than her and (she felt) looked down their noses at her.  But Mammy was smart enough to never let her grandchildren hear the comments that her children had heard numerous times.  We all thought Mammy was God’s gift to kid-dom. 

My favorite memories of Mammy include...  Well, let’s leave that for another time. She was too much woman, literally, to confine to limited space.

Maybe that’s why I still miss her.

Maybe that's why I assumed the name "Mammy" for my grandson to call me.  Hope I can live up to the title.

Have you ever tried to tell your life's story in under 4 minutes?  I have, and believe me, it wasn't a pretty sight!

On August 24th, I was interviewed by Good Day Atlanta Host Mark Hayes, live and on the air on Fox 5 in Atlanta at 7:10 in the morning.  The focus of conversation was, obviously, The Five Finger Paragraph.  My focus was to stay in my seat and try to keep my hands in my "frame" because they warned me that "the cameras can't hit a moving target."  I've never been known to be a wall flower.  When I was growing up at home with four younger brothers, he (or she -- me) who was seen and heard first, got to eat first.  If you shrank into the background, you probably got left out!  So, needless to say, I was not a shrinking violet!

I teach The Five Finger Paragraph to groups of kids, parents, and teachers, sometimes all together, and my job during those events is to move constantly to grab the attention of the little people in the audience and to hold the attention of the adults.  I'm consistently moving back and forth across the stage area, tripping over mike wires, and writing on charts.  I'm always embellishing and elaborating on something to get the point across.  Fox 5 wanted to curtail that "entertainment" factor.

Mark Hayes is a giant, at least 6'3" and I'm about 4x4.  It was obvious to the producers how dwarfed I would be if he stood up, so we sat.  My hands and mouth and eyebrows and head were in constant motion as I demonstrated, succinctly, the finer points of paragraph-dom. 

I realize that the purpose of the interview was to pique interest in the topic just a little bit, then throw up the web address and throw me out of there.  That's why they were only allowing 4 minutes to my "spot."  But try to answer questions like "How did you come up with the original idea?" and "What advantage is there to all of the colors on the hand?" and "What..." and "What..."  All you end up with is a lot of one-sentence answers to the host's questions, not a lot of information is imparted, and you feel, as the BackStreet Boys song goes, INCOMPLETE! 

I get to do it again on August 30th at a small cable station in south Georgia, but this time I'll get a whole 15 minutes!  Won't that be a luxury!

I think I like talking to people, not cameras, a lot better.  People usually don't "click a snapshot" and run.  They stay for the whole movie.....

I’ve heard of some kids not being able to keep their mouths shut, but this one beats all!  Even the orthodontist said he’d never seen it.

Trevor was away from home and the lady called and fairly screamed, “Come pick up your son.  His mouth is stuck open!”  My questioning did no good, ‘cause the lady had never seen such an occurrence and didn’t know what to do except to give him a bag of ice for the pain. 

Last May, Trevor finally got braces (at 16 ½).  But, in anticipation of the braces, his upper jaw (the hard palate in his mouth) had to be separated (broken) to widen his mouth to accommodate all the teeth he had coming in.  That done, the braces went on.  Last week, the braces came off.  Yesterday, he yawned too wide (is that possible?!?) while leaning his chin on both hands.  With the adverse pressure, his jaw popped out of the socket on the right!

The panic call from the woman led us to chasing around for an hour trying to find a doctor who wasn’t out to lunch!  Bad move.  The poor boy had his mouth opened wide for over an hour and a half.  After consulting nurses in several offices and determining that their doctor wouldn’t be able to help either (remember, I’m a Mom, talking on a cell phone while driving around, with a child in pain), I made the executive decision to head for the emergency room.  The sounds coming from the passenger seat sounded a lot like Lamaze labor moans.  As the sounds crescendo-ed and I drove faster, Trevor gave one last shriek and grabbed his jaw.  Suddenly, the jaw “popped” and it slid back into place. 

I slowed down to the speed limit, looked over at him and said, “So.  That’s it ?!?”  He replied, “I need pizza.”

The orthodontist that I had originally called gave an explanation fit for a second year medical school class, but I gleaned enough for a good at-home science lesson.  The upper jaw expansion was a contributing factor.  The top point of the mandible (lower jaw) fits into a sliding socket, not a closed socket like your shoulder or hip, to allow movement of the jaw during chewing.  The protuberance in the front of the socket (part of the upper jaw) varies in length and that’s why there’s the possibility of the jaw “popping,” even out of place.  Trevor’s protuberance was not only too short, but out of sync with the width of the lower jaw.  Hence, the popping out and staying out of place!

Think again before you tell someone to keep his mouth shut.  He may actually not be able to!