There’s talk of adding full-body scanners at airports allowing screeners to see through your clothes. Do you like that idea or should Superman be the only one allowed to use x-ray vision?
O.K. A radical Nigerian muslim buys a one way ticket (with cash) to the U.S. He doesn’t check any luggage, just has carry on bomb-making gear. Oh, and his dad had called the U.S. embassy to report his concerns about his son’s irrational behavior. None of that raises suspicions. Now stateside, Ivana Trump is kicked off a jet for yelling at kids running in the first class aisle. Who poses the greater danger? The potty-mouthed socialite or the Nigerian nutjob?
If you’ve seen the SNL video of “I’m on a Boat”, then you’ll enoy this parody produced by my friend Lance Pollard. Click here to check it out .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PqzcjTP_M
You see this every year. A cute little guy or girl approaching Santa and suddenly the waterworks. They get scared and don’t want to sit on his lap yet the proud mama makes them. Will the kids later look back and laugh at the memory or will they wonder “what was mom thinking”!
There’s now scientific evidence that proves what most women already knew. A man with a cold is just a big whining baby! Men are more likely than women to overrate their common cold symptoms. They stay in bed and need us to coddle them. I’ve written about this in the latest issue of Flourish magazine which should be out next month. For the record, my husband agrees with the research!
Why is it when you call a department store and they ask if they can put you on hold, they never wait to hear your answer? I don’t want to be put on hold! I called a department store this morning. After slogging through a list of options, I finally pressed #4 and got a human who immediately put me on hold. Actually, he just laid down the phone. I could hear him chatting away in the background. After 8 minutes and 53 seconds (my iPhone was keeping time) someone picked up the phone and hung up on me! I immediately called the main number to complain. The lady who answered was very nice and apologetic. She said with the hectic Christmas season, clerks are busy waiting on customers in line. If that’s the case, don’t asnwer the phone. Or at least take turns helping customers on the phone and in line.
I am sure you have probably heard this story, but I’ll pass it along to you just the same..
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75
cents in my pocket.. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two.
Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared.
Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to
buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, therewould be no more beatings, but no food either.
If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked
brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the
rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town.
No luck.
The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.
Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop.
It was called the Big Wheel.
An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard
shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.
I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people.
I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night.
She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep
This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.
And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke
the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip
money– fully half of what I averaged every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage.
The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires!
There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.
Had angels taken up residence inIndiana ? I wondered..I made a deal with the local service station.In exchange for his mounting the new
tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to
scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires. I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn’t enough.
Christmas was coming and I knew therewould be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing
patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too
far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank , and Jim , and a state trooper named Joe .
A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and
talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home
before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o’clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver’s side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of
the top box. Inside was whole case of little bluejeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans.
Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and
cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies
and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one
beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets
as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I
was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the
faces of my little ones that precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop…
My husband Jeff has been a KISS freak from the get go. He was known to dress like Gene Simmons, and not just at Halloween. Last night, he took our 15 year old son Sterling to the KISS concert at the Sprint Center. Nothing much has changed. Still the pyro, platform heels, Gene spitting blood and Paul wearing those chest baring unitards. Well one change. Paul now has man-boobs!
Greetings and Merry Christmas!!
Thanks to all of you who helped bring a little joy to those who might otherwise have nothing this Christmas Season. The joy of giving is what brings us all closer together as a Nation and closer to being more Christ like. If that offends you I’m sorry, but that’s the great thing about this country.
Back to Adopt a Family, thank you for your support and for giving again this year. We could not have done it without you. Your selfless acts of kindness bring a tiny bit of normalcy back to the lives of people whom without your generosity would be without the little things that will help them through the season.
Merry Christmas from all of us here at 98.1 KUDL
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