“When I was a young adult, it was difficult to get my folks to go to an establishment where they served alcohol, even if it was to see an entertainer.

A friend of the family opened a bar in our hometown where the Farm and Home store used to be located.  He remodeled it, it was very nice, and very large inside.  He would have different entertainers there, and it had a large dance floor.  One night, Marvin Rainwater (an entertainer from Nashville) was playing at the bar.  This place was very nice, there had never been a fight there.  I finally talked my folks into going.

Well, on that particular night, there were two women, one on each side of the room who, for whatever reason, disagreed about something.  So, before the show even began, these two females met in the middle of the dance floor and began to fight.  The owner tried to get in the middle to break it up, but without success.  He had a habit of carrying a large wad of money in his shirt pocket.  There was blonde hair and money all over the place.

Go figure, the one night I talk my parents into going to a bar, after building it up and telling what a nice place it was, there was a fight on that night.”

I understand that the networks need sponsors to pay for the programming, but aren’t things getting a bit ridiculous?  I used to tape a certain soap opera when it was still on the air, and you know, that during a one hour program, there is only actually 38 minutes of the program.  The rest is filled with commercials.

In a one half hour program, there are almost 20 minutes of commercials.  This is why I never watch infomercials (another new word in the English language).  I see enough commercials during my normal television viewing.  I HATE COMMERCIALS!!

I see and hear people of my children’s generation (and even my generation at times) using improper grammar and punctuation and it is so disheartening.  I see misspelled words on social websites constantly, and I am not referring to the shortcuts such as UR for you are, or LOL for laugh out loud, etc., I mean genuinely misspelled words.  It just seems to irritate me.

Is it the teachers who are at fault, or the parents of these young people for not paying more attention to their child’s education? I know our schools are in trouble, I know that teachers are underpaid, and our children’s education is suffering for it.  So, we now have a generation of young adults who cannot spell or speak our language correctly.  It really bothers me when I see a blog on a social network or a forwarded e-mail with bad grammar and spelling.  It is indeed sad.

Bingo has come a long way since I started playing some 30 years ago.  I remember way back then we used either the slide type markers that were built into the cards or just plain see-through bingo chips.  A  few years later they came out with magnetic bingo chips.  These were simply the clear chips with a light-weight metal strip around them that you ran a magnetic wand over to collect the chips after each game (I wonder what ever happened to my very large collection of magnetic chips?).  Now we simply use paper cards (recycled, of course) and use water-soluble colored ink “daubers”  to cover each number.  Now, they have computers that you can purchase to play for the night.  It is quite expensive to play the computers though.  And, as I have found out from recent experience, using a computer does not increase your chances one bit.

I have to chuckle when I think about all those ladies that used to bring pictures of their children and grandchildren and display them for good luck; and then there were the ladies who brought the little dolls with the wild hair for luck.  They would set everything up on the table, surrounding themselves with all sorts of trinkets and pictures, in the hope that it would bring them good luck.  Quite comical now that I think about it.  I was never one to use any “good luck charms”.  If figured if I was meant to win that night, I would.

Well, Jackie and I did not win any money the other night.  I have decided that I will not be playing with the computers anymore.  I hope that our next bingo outing, we go every Tuesday night, will be more fruitful.

That is a good point to ponder, like other questions that mankind has pondered throughout the centuries such as:  if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make noise?  No one will ever know the answer to that one for sure, because no one will be around to listen!!!

What about the age old question, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?  Has anyone ever really taken on that challenge?  I could never get though without biting into the thing.  As they said in the commercial, “The world may never know”.  How about the question, “How much wood can a woodchuck chuck”? In what amount of time are we talking about?  An hour, a day, a week?  Please people, be specific when asking such questions…

Just some things to think about the next time you are bored.  Maybe I should contact Playtex about that first one, you think?  Send some comments if you can think of any other age old questions that need to be pondered again and we may be able to get some answers for you.

My dad died from cancer back in the 1980′s, when I was just in my 20′s. I feel cheated out of having a dad as an adult. I loved him so much and I’m so proud of him for having served in the Navy.

Which pile is it in? Where did I put that? Am I ever going to read those old newspapers? Do I have to keep that? I’m drowning in paperwork.

As a teenager I wanted to try liquor and didn’t want to risk getting drunk on a date or out with a group of friends. I didn’t trust any of them to watch out for me and help out if I got into trouble. They would all probably be just as drunk or worse off than me to do anything helpful anyway.

Kids would drink at every private party I went to or heard about throughout my junior high and high school years. I found out that I could drink and tolerate beer. I seem to have a high tolerance level for beer and have never gotten totally smashed on beer.

Beer was easy to get – there was always someone with an older brother willing to drive over the state line and buy a case of beer for us. Then we would go to someone’s house where the parents were not home and sit outside or in the car in front of the house and pop a top. The advantage to being close to someone’s house was so the girls could go inside to use the bathroom if they needed to. Of course, the guys would just stand behind the car and whip it out. But the girls needed an indoor toilet and some privacy.