8 NON-BORING THINGS ABOUT MEFirst, I don't know if these will

8 NON-BORING THINGS ABOUT ME

First, I don't know if these will fit the definition of "non-boring" -- as my friend Lynne says (from whose blog I got the meme), we are egotistical beings and may find things about ourselves non-boring that others find boring. ;-) Second, I don't know if I will be able to come up with 8! While I was trying to nap, I thought of a number of possibilities, but the memories may escape me as I attempt to write them here.

1. I was born with jet-black hair, which fell out at a year old and turned blonde. As I approached adulthood, it became the light brown that it is now, despite various incarnations as blonde and dark again, depending on my and/or my late husband Steve's preferences and the aid of Miss Clairol.

2. When I was a young girl, possibly 3 or 4, my maternal grandfather, who had trained as a psychologist, had taken me to his office, where he gave me a test in which he had me repeat numbers in sequence and then took me elsewhere for a while. He brought me back and asked me to repeat the numbers he had given me, only backwards, which I was able to do without difficulty. He thought I was a genius! LOL! (However, if I was such a genius, I should be able to remember the numbers now, as well as where he and I went during the time we were away from the office. LOL!)

3. When I was in the 4th grade, my mother gave birth to my youngest sister, Kathy, and not long after that, she almost died of a bleeding ulcer. Thus, at the age of 10, I was put into the position of almost raising my younger siblings, Frank, who was 2 1/2 years younger than me, Jo, who was 4 years younger than me, and baby Kathy. My father was a school teacher and thus occupied elsewhere during the days; we had help from church ladies at first but that didn't last too very long. So part of my childhood consisted of raising my siblings. I remain close to Kathy, in particular.

4. One summer when I was in late grade school, my family was living in Eugene, Oregon while my dad went to summer school at the University of Oregon. A family from our church lived in an old house not far away, and one day when I was going to their house to play, I saw a couple of the younger boys coming across the roof and trying to go down a ladder that went up to it at the back. One of the boys fell and when I got to him, I found that he had a deep, triangle-shaped cut just above the area between his eyes. I told the other boy to hurry and get his mother, and she came immediately, thank goodness. He was rushed to the hospital. I don't recall the treatment, but he recovered all right. My mother told me later that the mother had said I saved her son's life by my quick action.

5. I have always been a very shy and timid person. I don't know if that was because of my natural temperament or due to aspects of my upbringing; perhaps both. I grew up in a church where getting up in front of the congregation to speak was expected, even of teenagers. I would quake in my boots and do an abysmal job when asked to do so. Imagine my panic when I was asked to participate in a regional church-wide speech contest. I was given some good fear-reducing tips by my speech instructor, though, and so I became determined to do a superior job. As it happens, I got up in front of the audience at the competition and I became suddenly confident, competent, and interesting. There weren't ribbons for first, second or third place, but I was one of the few who received a ribbon for the highest honor, being judged as "superior."

6. Not long after that, I was asked to play a lead in a play that someone from our church had written for the teenagers to perform. I was a prosecuting attorney. Once more, I had to battle my shyness and timidity, but I worked hard at memorizing my part (which was tremendously long, I felt). When the day came that us teens put on the play in our church's Sacrament Meeting, (equivalent to most Christian churches' worship services), I once again came out of my shell and I was able to portray a forceful prosecuting attorney. People looked at me in amazement when it was over with, but when they came up to me to tell me what a good job I had done, I became my shy, timid self all over again, and they went away disappointed. LOL!

7. Probably my last high school age accomplishment was to say yes when I was invited to sing a hymn, "I Know that my Redeemer Lives," with four other girls in a quintet. I had been told since early childhood by my mother that I couldn't sing, so this was a brave acceptance on my part. However, as we practiced, I memorized my alto part, as well as realized I could listen to the alto piano notes and follow them, so by the time we sang the song (once again in Sacrament Meeting), I was quite confident and did an excellent job singing it using my technique. It was the closing song for the meeting and when I got down to where my mother was sitting, I found her crying, and I asked her why. She said, "I didn't know you could sing." I just walked away, feeling disgusted. LOL! (Teenagers!)

8. Somehow I am only thinking of incidents where I went against my natural shyness grain. My last one is also the same. When Steve and I had had our 3 boys and were living out here in the country, he had been trained as an airplane pilot and tried working as one but through a series of events out of his control, he wound up without a job. He became interested in manufacturing food dehydrators and grain grinders and I also joined him in this endeavor, as it was a matter of survival for our family. I learned to use the whole grains we ground and the food we dehydrated. I'm not sure it was my idea to start teaching other people how to use the whole grain flours and dehydrated foods, but I could see that this was needed and so I dove in wholeheartedly. I was involved in displaying our products and giving out samples at the county fair at least one year, and coming up with a slogan and design for our booth that earned us a ribbon. (I can't remember what kind of ribbon it was exactly; perhaps honorable mention, but I was happy enough with that.) I continued with these endeavors until our business, Harvest Mills, was sold, in the late 1970's.

As I said, I'm not sure how non-boring these aspects of my life are. However, they're the best I can come up with! (Just don't ask me to do public speaking or demonstrating food processing machines again -- I think I did enough of that to last a lifetime! LOL!) But at least I did come up with 8. ;-)

CHARLIE WILSON'S WARLast

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

Last night, I watched the movie "Charlie Wilson's War", which I hadn't realized was rated R, and I discovered early on exactly why that was. Even the generally squeaky-clean Tom Hanks (in my opinion) used an occasional F-word. There was some nudity as well. Hanks played Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, and Julia Roberts was his wealthy married supporter in more ways than one. Here is a picture of the two of them in the movie:














The movie was based on the true story of how Congressman Wilson developed a deep concern for the Afghan people during the invasion by the Soviets. He learned that the Afghans had primitive weapons that were no match for the heartless Soviet soldiers, who committed horrible atrocities against them. The Soviets would even scatter items that looked like candy or toys so that when children picked them up, the "candy" or "toy" would blow up and thus there were many little children who were amputees.

Together with a rather oddball guy named Gust, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson was able to call in enough political IOU's to come up with a budget enabling the U.S. to supply the Afghans with weaponry that could shoot down the merciless Soviet helicopters and jets.

It was quite interesting to watch the portrayal of the political wheeling and dealing that went on in order to assist the Afghan people. Also, it was a good explanation of what might make the subject of another movie: How the Taliban came into power and the ultimate turning of some Afghans' aggression against the United States.

Charlie Wilson himself was quite easy-going morally, and there is a description of him in the movie that is very on-the-mark. Still, he had a big heart when it came to the plight of Afghanistan.

I would recommend the movie to mature adults who are interested in recent history and can disapprove of Charlie Wilson's foibles while still appreciating the good that he did for an oppressed people.

*****

I was very glad to hear yesterday that Barack Obama had quit his church. I don't see that he had much choice due to the continued political lampooning of Hillary Clinton from that church's pulpit, this time from a guest preacher. In doing this, Obama proved that he is truly a person who will make peace with Clinton when the time comes to do so and also that he is not just talking the talk but walking the walk. I didn't sense a lot of rancor, either from Obama or from the church leaders, in Obama's taking this step. I think Obama has a lot of wisdom for so relatively young a man on the political scene.