I'm Out Of Here

Start my trip to Maine today and not sure if I will have the time or ability to blog while I am gone. If I can, see you soon, if not, be back in a little over a week. Have fun while I'm gone.

What A Difference A Day Makes

(I know there are major events happening in Iran and that the worries of one little person does not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, even though, since I can not control what happens in the world, I will continue to focus on the little part of it that is mine. At the same time I will keep the people of Iran in my thoughts. God be with you.)

Actually, what a difference three days make. Friday I walked into my dentist office with a feeling of great apprehension. As the dental assistant closed the door to the small room I now occupied, after informing me that the doctor would be in shortly, I started crying. I got myself under control in a few seconds and then my doctor walked into the room and I lost it again. I told him not to worry, my tears had nothing to do with him and all to do with my childhood. For me my teeth had become a reminder of the neglect my siblings and I had undergone. I understand that some of the neglect, perhaps even all of it, was partially due to my mother fears. She had many and dentists were one of them.

Having the teeth pulled should have taken less than twenty minutes but it took almost two hours. The tooth that was being reabsorbed by my body broke just at the line between good tooth root and damaged tooth root After taking an x-ray my dentist showed it to me and pointed out the small section of tooth that was still in my mouth. Not only had the tooth broken off but the X-ray also showed that the root of the tooth did not end in a point but in a curved like a hook. This defect had not shown up in past X-rays because it had been hidden but now, since he had moved the tooth around in an attempt to extract it, it was visible.

As he worked I realized that my head was moving slightly in reaction to what he was doing and I so put my hand to the side of my head to hold it steady. He asked me if I was doing OK and I gurgled out a yes while a tear slid down the side of my face. He stopped what he was doing and reached over to pick up a square of gauze and used it to gently wipe the tear track from my face. That bit of kindness almost caused me to break down.

I have had lots of work done on my teeth and never reacted the way I did this day. I was not afraid but I realized that at this point I had all the muscles in my body so tense that if I had dropped to the floor I would have reacted like a Corelle plate, not breaking but wobbling back and forth. I thought why is this taking so long? Am I making this harder than it should be because I really do not want to loose the tooth? As I was thinking this my doctor said out loud to himself more than to me, "It's as if the tooth doesn't want to come out."

At this point I almost lost it completely. I never felt so alone in my life. I was afraid and I needed help so I called for my mother. "Mom, help me," I begged.

What I wanted was for the doctor to miraculously hold the bit of tooth up and say, "I've got it!"

What I got was the feeling that my mother was in the room with me and a utter sense of calm and peacefulness. I stopped fighting what was happening to me and relaxed. It took a few more minutes but with me helping the doctor by letting him know what I was feeling (pressure changes, the tooth moving, the instrument he was using hooking onto the tooth) the root came out.

My gum is healing nicely and the temporary bridge, known as a dental flipper, is only a little annoying. Hopefully I will get used to it. Eating with it will be a bit of a challenge but I think I can handle it until I get the permanent one.

I Cannot Stay, I Came To Say I Must Be Going

Still working at the library this morning. We got a good start yesterday but also realized how big the job is going to be. Every single book has to be re-cataloged into the computerized database. This will probably take the whole summer. Then this afternoon I go to the dentist. God, how I dread this right now. My husband said he will take me to the dentist office and wait there for me. It always feels good knowing someone has your back.

Now for your entertainment, Groucho Marx singing Hello, I Must Be Going from the film Animal Crackers (1930).



(Groucho Marx as Spaulding)
Hello, I must be going,
I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going.
I’m glad I came, but just the same I must be going.
La La.

(Margaret Dumont as Mrs. Rittenhouse)
For my sake you must stay.
If you should go away,
You’d spoil this party I am throwing.

(Spaulding)
I’ll stay a week or two,
I’ll stay the summer thru,
But I am telling you,
I must be going.

(All)
Before you go,
Will you oblige us,
And tell us of your deeds so glowing?

(Spaulding)
I’ll do anything you say,
In fact I’ll even stay!

(All)
Good!

(Spaulding)
But I must be going.

(Zeppo Marx as Jamison)
There’s something that I’d like to say,
That he’s too modest to relay.
The Captain is a moral man.
Sometimes he finds it trying.

(Spaulding)
This fact I emphasize with stress,
I never take a drink unless - Somebody’s buying.

(All)
The Captain is a very moral man.

(Jamison)
If he hears anything obscene, He’ll naturally repel it.

(Spaulding)
I hate a dirty joke I do,
Unless it’s told by someone who -
Knows how to tell it.

(All)
The Captain is a very moral man.
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.

(Spaulding)
Did someone call me shnorrer?

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Jamison)
He went into the jungle where all the monkeys throw nuts.

(Spaulding)
If I stay here I’ll go nuts.

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for science.

(Spaulding)
Hey, hey.

(Mrs. Rittenhouse)
You are the only white man to cover every acre.

(Spaulding)
I think I’ll try and make her.

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for science.

(Spaulding)
Hey, hey.

(All)
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Spaulding attempts to speak)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........

(All)
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Spaulding)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........

Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African big hero.....

Well, somebody’s got to do it!

Rushing Into The 20th Century

Working all day in the library as we start automating (computerizing) the book check out process. Today and tomorrow are set up and learn the system days.

So, How You Doin'?

Not too badly, although it has turned out to be a busier Spring than I expected. I have almost rested up from all the travelling I've already done but next week I fly to the coast of Maine to visit a friend and then in mid July I head for Pagosa Springs. It would not be so bad if I was not constantly weary. This weariness, I have discovered, is caused by a chronic infection in one of my teeth and the mild depression that has accompanied it. I have been on antibiotics, which I hate, for the last month and a half, mainly because I wasn't sure just what to do about the tooth.

I knew the only cure for the infection was to have the tooth removed but I dreaded the idea since having the one tooth pulled was not the limit of the treatment. I've already had a tooth removed and now I have to have the infected tooth pulled along with another tooth who's root is being reabsorbed by my body.

This is all happening because of an accident when I was a child but in my mind I equated having the teeth removed from my mouth with not taking good care of my body and I felt ashamed. I thought to myself that if I had only taken better care of my teeth none of this would be happening; the ways in which we beat ourselves up. Anyway, I finally realized that all the teeth I am loosing are the ones I damaged as a child and that I can now truthfully say I lost them all in a car accident. This thought cheered me up immensely.

So, on Friday afternoon I get the two teeth pulled and a temporary bridge put in. In about four months, after my gum heals, I will go back to the dentist and a permanent bridge will be installed. In anticipation of the couple of days of down time that I will be experiencing after my "procedure," I have assembled a few books to read while I lay on the couch willing my body to heal as quickly as possible. All the books chosen will take me to distant times and places, all will make the time pass quicker, and all will keep my mind off of my missing teeth.

Yeamans Hardware (New And Old)

The oldest business in Akron, Colorado at the corner of Highway 34 and Main Street. Not only did the Yeamans family own the hardware store, they owned the town mortuary and built caskets in the basement of the store. I'm guessing that was only done in the building on the right.

(Go here and enter Yeamans Hardware Store in the search box to see a photo of the original 1885 building. Click on that photo to enlarge it.)

We Visited Some Exciting Places While We Were Gone

Bob and Duke in beautiful downtown Otis, Colorado

Travel Day

Heading home today after what seems like a very long time away. Have a great weekend everyone.

Stop The Madness

And yet another hate filled person goes on a shooting rampage.


From the musical South Pacific.

Spoken:
Emile: I do not believe that this is born in you. I do not believe it!

Cable: It's not born in you. It happens after you are born.

Cable sings:
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to year
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
To be afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught

Damn, I Missed The Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards This Year

Hair:The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical won best musical revival.

She asks me why...I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why- don't know!
It's not for lack of bread
Like the Grateful Dead, darling

Gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there (Hair!)
Shoulder length, or longer
Here baby, there mama, everywhere daddy, daddy

Hair! (Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Flow it, show it,
Long as God can grow it, my hair!

Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas, a hive for bees
A nest for birds, there ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my hair

Flow it, show it,
Long as God can grow it, my hair!

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining
Gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and spaghettied!

O-oh, say can you see, my eyes
If you can, then my hair's too short!
Down to here, down to there,
I want hair down to where
It stops by itself!
doo doo doo doo doot-doot doo doo doot

They'll be ga-ga at the go-go
when they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond, brilliantined, biblical hair
My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah, I adore it
Hallelujah, Mary loved her son
Why don't my Mother love me?

Hair! (Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Flow it, show it,
Long as God can grow it, my hair!

Hair! (Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Flow it, show it,
Long as God can grow it, my hair!

Hair! (Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Flow it, show it,
Long as God can grow it, my hair!

Happy Birthday To Me

When I was a kid my mother always gave me and/or my siblings the day of from school if it was our birthday. So, in keeping with that tradition, their will be no real post today. I'm taking the day off.

Unusal Weather We're Having, Ain't It?

-Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (1939)

In Denver right now and we had a tornado touch down in the southwest part of the metropolitan area yesterday. It did a some damage to a mall down there but no one was injured. One man is in the hospital listed as serious after he got swept away while videoing the tornado while standing on his backyard patio. He is lucky he wasn't killed.

My sisters and I were down at the Capitol Hill People's Fair while that was happening huddled under a tree trying not to get wet in the pouring rain or hit by falling hail. We found out just how intense the storm had been when we were driving home. The streets were littered with tree leaves and hail stones were piled up like snow at the edge of peoples lawns. I saw a truck that had hail dents on its hood as we neared my sister's house and wondered if my car had been damaged by the hail. It had but only slightly. I was so happy to find the car windows and windshield intact that I wasn't bothered by the few dents on the trunk and hood.

My sister's trees also got beaten up and her flowers hammered. I found this to be more upsetting than the dinks on my car.

Country Road, Take Me Home

To the place I belong.
-John Denver

Life Is What Happens To You

while you're busy making other plans.
-John Lennon

Still not done with all I had planned and now behind schedule. We (husband, dog, me) did make it up to a friend's cabin in the Colorado mountains.


The view from our friend's cabin on a rainy, lazy Sunday afternoon.

Hay De Hay De Hay De Hay

The Old Man Of The Mountain (1933) was the last Cab Calloway-Betty Boop cartoon. Cab does all the character voices in this cartoon except for Betty Boop. Mae Questel does hers, of course. Cab also has his dancing rotoscoped again.

With a long, white beard and a crooked stare,
He tramps along with the folks all scared;
With a twinkle in his eye, he passes them by,
The Old Man of the Mountain!

Oh, he wears long hair and his feet are bare,
They say he's mad as a grizzly bear,
His cares are none and he fears no one,
The Old Man of the Mountain!

He talks with the bears when he's lonely,
He sleeps with the sky for a tent,
And he'll eat you up when he's hungry,
And it wouldn't cost him a red cent!

And he'll live as long as an old oak tree,
He'll eat up fools like you and me,
Oh, I often sigh and jump and cry
At the Old Man of the Mountain!

You got to ho-de-ho,
(You got to ho-de-ho)
You got to hi-de-hi,
(You got to hi-de-hi)
You got to he-de-he
To get along with me!
(Yeah, man! How do?)

You've gotta learn my song,
(I gotta learn your song)
If you do me wrong,
(I'm gonna do you wrong)
You gotta kick the gong
To get along with me!

You got to hi-de-hi,
(You got to hi-de-hi)
You got to he-de-he-de
(You got to he-de-he-de)
You gotta hay-de-hay-de-hay
To get along with hey!

Hey!

Ho!

When your sweetie tells you, everything will be okay,
Just...(scat singing)

If you feel like shoutin', advertise it
Just this way...(scat singing)

I don't know which is more disturbing in this cartoon, the use of bunny rabbits as roller skates or those babies with the beards and the old man faces. Maybe I should go kick the gong around awhile to get those images out of my mind.

Toujours Gai

Once upon a time, way, way back at the start of the 20th century, a newspaper man named Don Marquis left a blank piece of paper in his typewriter at the end of his workday. Imagine his surprise the next morning when he found a cockroach jumping on the keys of that typewriter and producing words and sentences. Reading what the cockroach wrote Marquis discovered that the insect was the reincarnated soul of a dead poet who now went by the name Archy. In his message Archy wrote, "expression is the need of my soul" and ask the newspaper man to continue leaving blank sheets of paper in his typewriter so that he the reincarnated poet could continue writing poetry and feed his need. Marquis was happy to comply. Not only did he continue to let Archy use his typewriter, he also printed Archy's writings in his own column.

I am reading Don Marquis' collection of Archy's writings in The Life and Times of Archy and Mehitabel. I thought you might like to read some of Archy's writings yourself so below you will find "certain maxims of archy."

live so that you
can stick out your tongue
at the insurance
doctor

...

the servant problem
wouldn t hurt the u s a
if it could settle
the public
servant problem



just as soon as the
uplifters get
a country reformed it
slips into a nose dive

...

old doc einstein has
abolished time but they
haven t got the news at
sing sing yet



time time said old king tut
is something i ain t
got anything but



every cloud
has its silver
lining but it is
sometimes a little
difficult to get it to
the mint



an optimist is a guy
that has never had
much experience



don t cuss the climate
it probably doesn t like you
any better
than you like it



many a man spanks his
children for
things his own
father should have
spanked out of him

...

the honey bee is sad and cross
and wicked as a weasel
and when she perches on you boss
she leaves a little measle

...

the bees got their
governmental system settled
millions of years ago
but the human race is still
groping


there is always
something to be thankful
for you would not
think that a cockroach
had much ground
for optimism
but as the fishing season
opens up i grow
more and more
cheerful at the thought
that nobody ever got
the notion of using
cockroaches for bait

archy

Hi De HI De Hi De Ho

Cab Calloway's next Betty Boop cartoon after Minnie the Moocher was called Snow White (1932). He sang St. James Infirmary Blues as Koko the Clown, a ghost, a gold coin, and a bottle of booze. As you can undoubtedly imagine, this is not your Disney version of Snow White. Just as they did in Minnie the Moocher, Calloway's dancing has been rotoscoped onto the cartoon characters singing his song.

Folks, I'm going down to St. James Infirmary,
See my baby there,
She's stretched out on a long, white table,
She's so sweet, so cold, so fair.

Let her go, let her go, oh, bless her,
Wherever she may be;
She will search this wide world over,
But she'll never find another sweet man like me.

Now, when I die bury me in my straight-leg britches,
Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat,
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch-chain,
So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat.

Then give me six crap-shootin' pall-bearers,
Let a chorus girl sing me a song;
Put a red-hot jazz band at the top of my head
So they can raise hallelujah as we go along.

Now, folks, that you have heard my story...

Say, boy, hand me over another shot of that booze,
If anyone should ask you,
Tell 'em I got those St. James Infirmary Blues.

Did you notice how the queen looks and sounds a little like Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoons? This is because, as you all ready know, Popeye was a Max Fleischer cartoon and Mae Questel, who was the voice of Betty Boop, was also the voice of Olive Oyl and the voice of the queen in this cartoon.

A couple more interesting facts, St. James Infirmary Blues is the story of a woman who died of a cocaine overdose and cocaine is also known as snow. Humm, cocaine, snow, Snow White. Is that just a coincidence ...or not?