HOW I BUILT A COLLEGE FUND FROM SCRATCH
by M G
My son, Joey, owned stock in Johnson and Johnson when he was three.
Well, okay, he did not attend board meetings, but he owned 16 shares of JNJ, which listed (at the time) for $50 on CNN-Headline News’ financial report. He added two shares of The Proctor and Gamble Company to his portfolio around the time he turned three, with me putting away a little stash to buy it. I paid for it all without touching our one-income family budget.
While I was pregnant, I read articles in parenting magazines warning me Joey’s education would cost more money than I thought my husband and I could ever earn. Since I was fairly sure I would see Dick Clark and Ed McMahon only on reruns of old television shows and not with any sweepstakes notification team, I came up with a plan.
The idea developed soon after Joey was born when cards saying “Here’s a little something …” arrived in the mail. All of the little somethings went into a savings account that I guarded like a million bucks. With one eye on Joey’s $65, I plotted for more.
I never thought big, just a lot. Thinking was about all I could do while I was suffering the sleep deprivation a newborn brings. I thought about places where my hands touched money.
Coupons. I clipped coupons religiously from the Sunday newspaper inserts and magazines. I never cut coupons for products I did not use, but I clipped all coupons for items I bought often. No amount was too small. Grocery day came — too soon for a new mother opening the cupboard door one morning to discover that God only sent the baby, not the supplies. I picked up my coupons, packed Joey in the mandatory car seat, and drove to the store.
At the checkout counter, I asked that the groceries be totaled before subtracting the coupons. I wrote a check for the pre-coupon total and deposited the change into The Account. All $12.35. One store I shop at requires coupons be placed on items purchased, so I ask nicely if they can be set aside until the end. One checker tried to give me trouble about store policy, but after I threatened to leave the groceries for her to put away, she laughed and gave in. Who was paying for the groceries, anyway? I had a child to educate with coupon money.
I kept a record the first year, but it became fine science. I stopped keeping the money saved by coupons separate, just depositing the amount into The Account, like a pro. Keeping the money separate that first year taught me the ritual. Watching the coupon money grow into $234 taught me discipline.
Gifts. This one is tricky, because I am not sure there is a tactful way to ask for monetary gifts. I mentioned the college fund to our immediate family, suggesting $10 or $20 would be as meaningful to Joey as toys. My mother-in-law loved it, but everyone else continued to send toys. I didn’t mind, because in addition to $50 from the Mother Grooch, Joey got new toys to toss around for a while before I cashed them in.
Thrift Shops/Consignment Stores. All that great stuff from the baby shower was so cute and I sold it as Joey grew. The car seat, high chair, and baby swing brought $20 each at the thrift shop. His pajamas and sleepers sold for $2 apiece. Those cute little sweatsuits and overalls I had his photographs made in added $5 per set. I sold most of his toys as he outgrew them. I made two trips to the thrift shop the first year. After subtracting the 20 percent consignment fee, I deposited $85.
Rebates/Price Refunds. When my son was two, I got into the rebate business. I liked the irony of getting rebates from The Proctor and Gamble Company almost as much as I liked the fact that Joey only wore training pants at night by then. I sent off rebate offers for tampons, deodorants, a variety of laundry detergents — my product loyalty lasted only until I saw a better rebate.
I didn’t put it off. When I returned from the store, I cut off the UPC code, circled the price on the receipt, and mailed the offer. I sent in photocopied receipts to get rebates from more than one product at a time. The checks trickled in and you know where they went.
The Plan – Phase 2
As Joey approached his first birthday, The Account approached $500. I knew the money should be invested. But where?
Nick and I wasted an afternoon at an investment counselor’s office, where I paced stroller tracks on pile carpet as Nick refused to sign anything. I had not seen so many charts and graphs since the Presidential election when Ross Perot and everyone were talking about balancing the federal budget. The charts seemed to prove we could be millionaires, but hey — if I had $500 a month to commit to a mutual fund for 15 years, would I have been rolling nickels and clipping coupons?
At the library I found Peter Lynch’s book, Beating the Street*, while Joey found a wad of gum on the bottom bookshelf. I pried information from the pages with the same intensity I pried the gum from that kid’s mouth. And with equal horror.
Price-to-earnings ratios, emerging growth stocks versus capital appreciation stocks, and equity-to-assets comparisons convinced me the former Wall Street billion-dollar-fund manager never had to make eight diapers last till payday. A tip on page 152 gave me all the information I needed:
“If you like the store, chances are you’ll love the stock.”
The advice, given about product research, literally described Lynch’s trips to a local mall to see which stores and products were doing well. He said it gave him ideas about new retailers or products to investigate for potential investment.
I skipped the mall trip and looked around my house at the baby oil, talcum powder, baby wipes, shampoo, and cotton swabs. Applying a liberal interpretation to Lynch’s advice — since he never even mentions JNJ in the entire book — I decided what store I liked.
Nick asked around work and found a friend who sold me one share of his JNJ stock. Two weeks later a letter arrived with the reinvestment plan and deposit slips. I waited five months and decided if the stock value of a 110-year-old company making everything from baby products to birth-control pills plummeted to nothing, I would have bigger financial worries than sending Joey to college. I sent $300 and waited. After three weeks of not hearing anything, I got a little panicky, but felt foolish when a notice explained JNJ reinvests only one day each month. The letter confirmed ownership of 4.123 shares on Feb. 7, 1996. Joey, who was busy climbing onto and jumping off the coffee table onto pillows strewn around the floor, was a corporate player.
I sent $375 in June 1996, which gave Joey 8.337 shares at 89 7/16 — stocks listed in odd fractional amounts because of some reason I was not interested in. That summer, a letter arrived saying the stock had split. We knew that was good, since share price halved and total shares owned doubled. The total DRIP value was 14 percent higher than it when I’d bought it, so I felt it was going well. I rarely paid attention to stock market prices because I usually had important things to do — like digging coins from pockets as I did laundry and clipping coupons.
That summer the inevitable happened. I was forced to dip into The Account for car repairs. I struggled against it, but finally admitted that it would not make sense to invest money for college if we could not buy groceries. I asked Joey if we could use $200 of his money.
“Swing, Mommy. Joey wanna swing.”
I sent $250 off to The Proctor and Gamble Company not too long after that. I spied their toll-free number on a package of diapers while sending in a rebate offer. I called to ask if they had a dividend reinvestment program. They not only had a DRIP– as we savvy portfolio managers called them — they had a direct stock purchase plan with a $250 minimum initial investment. That way I avoided paying a broker for doing nothing, and also avoided the hassle of ferreting out a rich friend with a share of P&G to sell.
Of course, I cleared it with Joey first to make sure he was ready to diversify.
“Wheels on bus go ’round and ’round, Mommy.”
Joey was eager to see how much his first shares of P&G cost. I heard there were mutual funds that would take as little as $250 initial investment. If I’d found one which would have accommodated my haphazard investment strategy, I might have had a few yard sales.
I asked Joey how he wanted to vote his shareholder ballot when it arrived.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Mommy.”
You bet, baby. As high as I can lift you.
###
* Beating the Street is probably out of print and obsolete. I’m sure you savvy investors can figure out a better way to invest.
(In the “olden” days, this (###) meant “The End” to signal the article was over.)
Post Script: From the image, you can see my son graduated from Missouri S&T a year ago, but the diploma is MINE. I think I earned it, don’t you? And yes, indeed, that really IS Das Boot and we also purchased and built a log home the same way. Now? I’m saving for a trip to Alaska. I’m taking a little pelt to visit the site of an AWACS crash up there.
Post Script to Post Script: This was the first article I ever sold. I framed the check for $150 and hung it on the wall. For a day or so, then I decided that was silly. I made a copy of it and deposited the money where it needed to be… The Account. Duh.
A nice article. A female counterpart to an HSF story, perhaps.
Sadly, a modren young mother, seeing the phrase “if you like the store, you’ll like the stock”, would buy Apple or Amazon rather than JNJ or PG.
Only Modren Mothers you know… the ones around here say “uh huh” and “that’s right.”
Oh, and if I WAS a women’s libber, which I’m not… I would take humbrage at you suggesting this is a “female counterpart” to anyone’s story.
I wrote and sold it over twenty years ago.
While annoying women’s libbers is great fun, putting your work on a plane with HSF was meant as a great compliment, and I don’t recall his pieces ever mentioning coupons or tampons. I also suspect that if I asked nicely if you’d please make me a sandwich that you’d happily do so, while HSF would probably if my damned arms are broken.
I would make you a sandwich, sure. You would not like it because it would taste soiled.
Holy moley, who has the money?
Well, some came out to pay for his two last years at Rolla (Missouri S&T). His first two years had to be paid by him… that was the deal. He came through by working day and night bagging groceries for tips at the USAF Commissary at Tinker AFB when he wasn’t in school or taking care of horses for one of our friends, who paid him well to shovel shit.
That skill will serve him as well as any engineering degree, in my opinion.
So, the rest? Well, we bought this little log home kit and then, we hired a Mennonite family to build it. So, mostly it got spent. But, there was a lot of it, as you can imagine. That dividend reinvestment thing works.
Even if you buy a company that makes tampons, as Neuday finds so horrifying and disgusting.
In my defense, many years ago, this naive young lad got quite friendly with a beautiful young lass. While getting better acquainted my hand wandered to her body’s most tender place and found one incredibly thick hair, but, alas twas not a hair but a string. I’ve always preferred reticence in women but there are times to speak up before I wander into trouble. Perhaps a certain word triggers PTSD.
I don’t know if you read my original comment, but it said “Oh, and if I WAS a women’s libber, which I’m not… I would take humbrage …”
You really seem intent on making sure I know you don’t like the same bitches I don’t like.
I swore to “obey” the man I married. While I may be a bit legalistic about finding “wiggle room” between “obey” and “follow the general direction,” I am not the type of woman who does not realizes all the hopes and dreams of mankind rest upon the strong shoulders of strong men.
If only they could be found.
Damn,Mags you really didn’t let him go to that communist shithole in Columbia,did you?
Rolla. A little college out in the Ozarks. The team mascot is a “Miner” which I always thought was hilarious. Now that I’m old enough to realize why geology matters? It makes sense.
An hour away from Ft. Leonardwood, for you Army folks out there… Fort LostintheWoods.
I loved being able to pop onto the Army base and get groceries at the commissary (we are retired USAF) and shop there on base. Ft. Leonardwood is a lovely little base, in my opinion.
And, I absolutely LOVE being called Ma’am by all the troops. It makes me feel safe and protected and hopeful that the entire millenniel generation isn’t completely lost.
My son could shop there until he turned 23… that is the “cutoff” to be hold a dependent ID card, even for a college student.
My son says this is embarrassing, but when he got the job offer and they paid him to move to Kansas City, he didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He seemed a bit cocky. Brat.
I apologize. Rolla is more like what I expected of you.
Thank you.
The original Paydirt Pete (Texas Western School of Mines – UTEP) before they fucked it up.
There was a different Miner on my old Tshirt from Rolla too. That was a really long time ago… Let me see if I can find him.
I actually started the University of Missouri-Rolla (1980) with a SLIDE RULE. Calculators were not allowed.
A slide rule? What is a slide rule?
Gosh, we both went to a school with a miner mascot for a while, both former AF. Both harassed by Hollywood dickless. We must be the same person.
I’m Nobody.
Who are you.
Are you Nobody, too?
Then there’s two of us.
Don’t Tell.
They’ll banish us you know. … Emily Dickinson
https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260
Perhaps.
This was, for some reason, when SAURON looked my way.
You still haven’t proven that you are not the same person. Hiding behind the anonymity of the interwebs has it’s upside, and it’s downside. Each of us gets to decide if we believe you or we don’t believe you. I personally prefer to deal with people who are not afraid to reveal their true self. You know, Jim, Marc, Doug.
You forgot Stucky.
The most beautiful part of being “Narrator” in one’s own life is the ability to flashback and revise.
So, I was in the hospital back and forth as the wound vacuum failed, then they got it working and then, HOLEY CRAPOLA, what is deep tissue and fat necrosis and why is all this stuff just leaking from all the staples?
So, without being too disgusting because it really, really was… here is the revision. We’ve all jumped to conclusions. I jumped to the conclusion that having a debate with the Loathesome Blight about Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris might be a good distraction and he laid into me like a freaking monkey on a banana, crying like a baby at the idea anyone else might know a damn thing about anything.
I apologize to Admin for suggesting nepotism. I realize now the Blight is the Court Jester and is here to remind the rest of us how NOT to act.
I applaud the Fireman, once again.
So… EC, old TBP running buddy, I think we both jumped the gun and I miss having a road guard around once in a while.
I’m not saying I’m sorry to you. Red Ropes do not do that.
This was a couple months before the surgery, after I’d done the “prayer walking” thing, but before the hernia mesh shut me down and I dropped another 45 pounds. (Taking DD to a nice full C)
I couldn’t close the bodice of the $29.99 (on clearance at Montgomery Ward… remember them?) wedding suit I wore, but I got it ON and would have looked good, had it not been for the giant chest I developed after giving birth.
That’s our Vinnie, at the wedding. I love that one too.
Where’s that big monkey hugging image Admin loves to throw at TBP spitters when they clean up their own mess?
In this part of the country, the image of this man on my blog generated more than one thousand responses. Not “likes” or thumbs.
Responses.
We called him the “Walking Man” and he was always somewhere on the road and everyone knew him and would give him a ride.
I will tell that story here, if Admin would like to see it here. I know it is hillbilly LOCAL, but, hey… the Missouri Territory was really a lot bigger than people know now that no one even gives a crap about maps.
I’m sorry but I really didn’t understand any of that. I get that you cruise the internet and that you copy pictures that you like and intersperse them with pictures that you take, but Jebus do we have to see you in your wedding dress? How is that even legal. And how does any of that relate to maps of the US?
Please don’t feel that you have to tell that story (I can’t tell which story you are referring to). I can’t even tell what point you are trying to make in your response. You really are losing the thread here.
Along with your mind.
Great story Mags!
Thanks, Nova Scotia. Was getting worried about you. I think Odin has blessed us both greatly.
Serious.
Hey… that line about Odin? I think it opened a doorway and shhhhhhhh….. you will be credited for your sacrifices made to the Great Norse Gods. (Were there Norse Goddesses? Is there a Marta?)
RINS, you Canadien fuck, what do you think about the non tripping call in the Bruins game. That was absolutely bullshit. Eh?
Grooch says it was probably a penalty but so what? We are not fans of Beantown.
We be Blues fans now.
Grooch like the Columbus Bluejackets, who were eliminated by Boston, so you see why the “so what?”
Well done indeed!
Thank you, Mate.
Great story and a good lesson in building wealth. I think Wall Street is more casino than investment vehicle these days but you don’t get jack from the bank in interest so 4% divvy on a good blue chip that is reinvested is about the safest “compounding interest” vehicle worth a damn right now.
My father did similar and purchased 100 shares of the local public utility that had a DSPP when I was just a kid back in the late 70’s. There were no 529 plans then so it was just under UGTMA. Every quarter the dividends were reinvested. Thankfully I went to college long enough ago that I could work 60hr weeks all summer and part time during school and pay my own way. So the account just kept growing. Now I’m in my 40’s and have over 30 years of consistent growth. No, I’m not going to retire early on it but at current market values it’s a nice six figure addition to a retirement nest egg and instead of a quarters dividend buying 2-3 new shares it’s buying 50+. Thanks Dad.
My father was the kind who buried money in big metal ammo boxes. He was a true child of the Depression and then, being in a POW camp in Japan for over three years didn’t help him trust other people with his money or his stuff. There were some thieves among the thieves in his camp.
Just like here.
I managed to get some of his stuff. Mother has the money, if she knows where to dig.
I think I do.
Even if you do know where those cans are buried, I wouldn’t bother to try to dig them up if I were you. (Thankfully I am not.) Those cans rusted away years ago and any money that was in them has turned into mulch. Unless of course it was quarters from your old hooking days. Then they might still be in the earth, but there won’t be much of anything left of the cans themselves. And even at that, big metal ammo boxes really don’t hold an impressive amount of cash if it is in quarters.
Just trying to be helpful.
Enjoyed that. We always paid off debts early until we didn’t need debt anymore. I used to think my bride’s couponing was cute…. that is… until it became oppressive. 🙂 She would say it was real money (and, of course, she was right) – but I would say “with what I could make an hour, the time I spent remembering, cutting, and processing those damn things, I am actually losing money!” 🙂
Seriously, with her, just going to to the movie with all of her savings cards and snack redemptions was like buying real estate. Truly, when she goes into to Kohls they actually PAY her to walk out with $50 bucks of stuff. I can’t keep up with that. It’s confusing. So I would say: “Why…., for me, it’s like stepping over $10 bills to pick up dimes!” (Of course, while she watched me walking to the computer to print out a $9 oil change coupon).
But my real secret was to team up with smart people and taking calculated risks and when we won, we’d all pay off houses, cars, and college educations. When we lost, I’d say: “Hey Babe, do ya still have that coffee coupon and a couple bucks?” I’ll pay ya back”.
I like starting new verticals. In fact, I’m kind of in-between right now. Cash poor (mentally), but life is more exciting that way.
—
On another note, Mags. I did finish the entire Flatland video last night. It was quirky, slightly annoying, and very thought-provoking. I also watched a few other vids (below) that YouTube queued up. The 1st one is was 5 minutes and the 2nd is 12 min in length. I believe these vids (especially) the 2nd one have massive metaphysical applications regarding the UFO phenomena that now appears to be gaining steam in the headlines every day; again, as alluded to in my 2017 article: ”
“ALIEN 1: We’re from Outer Space. We’re here to help”. I purposely titled that “Alien 1, in case I ever wanted to do an Alien 2, and so forth. Anyway, I didn’t want to hijack the thread, but just wanted to tell that. Thanks for the post(s).
The book was given to me by my aunt, when I was a kid and I read it and read it and studied it. I remember trying to bend and fold construction paper to try and “see” the dimensions suggested. I never could but I almost caught a glimpse of infinity one day, I’m pretty sure.
Appreciate the comment. I know you are busy.
I didn’t care a LOT for the movie. Is why I decided to read it with the kids and act it out. The visuals are not what I’d hoped, but since most people don’t read any more…
After my son went to public school and I went back to work, I told my husband we’d lived on one salary for ten years and we could continue to do so.
When they asked how much I wanted to invest in the 401K plan, I asked if I could just have my freaking pay deposited there since Boeing guaranteed a certain rate of return at that time. LOL… you should have seen the HR lady’s face.
So,we retired when I was 53 and my son was a sophomore in college. But, I had the money from the investment plan to pay for the other two years and we had our own savings for the rest of our lives.
God has been really good to us. Odin is now taking over.
Good Lessons there, M G.
You had a goal, but had the discipline to use a SYSTEM.
There’s a difference.
Using a SYSTEM, vs. having a Goal
A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future.
A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run.
If you do something every day, it’s a system.
If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.”
There can be some overlap with how we regard this perspective.
A system to achieve some objective requires goals, and
A goal requires a system if you are to achieve it.
Yet, thinking of goals and systems as very different concepts has power.
Take the objective of dieting, for instance.
If you want to lose 30 pounds, that’s a goal. You’ve either achieved it or you haven’t. It can be discouraging to look on the scales each day and see that you have not achieved your goal. And so you need to constantly remind yourself that one day, far off in the future, you will achieve it (hopefully). Either way, it takes a lot of energy and determination to persist.
But eating the right kinds of foods, that’s a system. So long as you’re eating healthy foods, you’re already winning.
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. ‘Systems’ people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. Each step along the journey yields mistakes, learning, & growth.
For a new business venture, the idea is to create something that has value and — this next part is the key — visualize the product to be something that is easy to reproduce in unlimited quantities. You don’t want to sell your time, at least not directly, because that model has an upward limit. And you don’t want to build an automobile factory, for example, because cars are not easy to reproduce. Create, invent, write, or otherwise concoct something widely desired that will be easy to reproduce.”
Very smart. But there’s a catch:
A system of creating something the public wants and reproducing it in large quantities nearly guarantees a string of failures. By design, all efforts will be long shots. If you are goal-oriented instead of system-oriented, you might be prone to giving up after the first several failures. It may feel like banging your head against a brick wall.
But being systems-oriented, you will feel yourself growing more capable every day, no matter the fate of the project that you happen to be working on. And every day during those years, wake up with the same thought, literally, as you rub the sleep from your eyes and slap the alarm clock off… “Today’s the day.”
-author unknown
I make it a point to look myself in the eye in the mirror once in a while and say OUT LOUD… I didn’t do as well as I could yesterday, Lord, but today I will try harder.”
That’s my system. It’s going pretty darn good… I made some real progress with my project today.
Thanks… I’m going to put some suds in a mug and get some clothes in off of the line.
Like 3 or 4 songs by Sara.
She seems to have dropped off the c/w music circuit.
Couldn’t Ask For More, and
A Real Fine Place To Start
are 2 more, that are decent songs, and she has a great voice.
Wasn’t too bad to gaze at, either.
Shania Twain was sexy, too, in her early years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z013gbbG8uE
I took some images of the Mississippi today while up in Cape Girardeau. It is AMAZING how overfilled and climbing it is…
I found this amusing… the road to get to the dry dock is closed… flooded.
If you KNOW what you are looking at here (that’s Illinois a long, long way across that water) you know how high this river really is right now. People are more than worried.
Not farmers. That’s what government flood insurance is for.
Wow, MG! Amazing pic. It doesn’t look that bad around here. Everything seems to be north and south. But the Missouri did just drop down near normal because we have had a few dry days. No rain in the forecast until Monday night, I think.
Still raining here… we had three cloudbursts today… an inch and a half in just a half hour this morning. Is why my father told me to find me a nice little plot of land in the hills when I suggested we build a house down on the flatlands, on the family’s Missouri Century farm. (My grandfather bought the land when the reclamation project (Little River Drainage District) was complete. 160 acres for one dollar an acre. Promised my grandmother an easy life.
Then, he moved her into a swamp with her brand new nursing degree. A wonderful and charming man, my grandfather, a Brown of Brown’s Cove, Virgina. And a wonderful, practical woman, my very, very German grandmother, formerly a Vollmar of St. Louis.
We heard the pressure on the flood walls is greater than it has ever been in Cape. Walking down that track to “Dry Dock” because the roads are flooded and you can’t get to DRY DOCK.
The railroad is also closed… sections almost under water, but I walked on the rails to get under the bridge. To get the picture.
Supposedly, according to local “folklore”… the Big Muddy will decide one day to return to the Swamp and there will not be enough sandbags to stop the flow.
But that’s just old codgers sitting around talking trash.
What do they know?
I didn’t know M G was a published author. This crowd is intimidating.
I told you years ago I’d sold a few little articles here and there, but preferred editing other people’s crap.
I’ve changed my mind.
And, by the way, I wanted to write a tandem story with you and you said they all suck.
Well, I don’t know if you ever read Talisman, which was a Stephen King/Peter Straub collaboration, but I thought they did the switch/flip very well. I figured with the commonalities in our AF backgrounds and the differences in our upbringings, we could have been contenders.
Now… sigh.
Quetzacoatl is still in Oklahoma until the brother visits from Chile. I still haven’t figured out how to get him to the land of the Mayas, but since that’s another story for the Coonskin Chronicles, I’m not worried about it now.
Because, me, Grooch and Flat Stuck (had to change his name and now, am selling 1st North American Serial rights, so can’t share images) are Alaska bound. That story has yet to be written.
Maggie,
I have always enjoyed your writing here, was a long time lurker before I retired and actually had the time and then developed the inclination to comment.
An enduring story, there is no love like the love for a child and successfully easing them out of the nest is to be celebrated! The memories are of the brightest colors…that never, ever fade and only become more vibrant with time.
I got my first pay check for an article in 84…I was thrilled. It was for $150.00 for an article in the VFW Magazine. It changed my life.
Did you decide you needed to frame it for posterity, like I did? LOL
Darlene Bailey Beard spoke to our class one time when I was at OU (FlimFlam man) and she told us she’d framed the first payment she received and never cashed the check.
I tried. Lord knows I tried.
Haha…
I needed the $150 more than I needed the self-actualization reminder.
Thanks for sharing.
Actually? Thanks for a lot. You are a very decent sort of feller, as my Daddy might say, while Poppa Grooch would say “he’s seems to be a good guy.”
Am a lucky woman… had two wonderful fathers in my life.
I read the whole thing. Thrift has always been good even though I have rarely practiced it. Good.
I wanted my kid to be able to attend a good college debt free. That was my driving passion.
And, if he hadn’t been a putz and dropped a class when things got a bit hard that last year (I was sick, but I felt like he was using my illness as an excuse), he would have. As it was, a single loan for one semester he has already paid back probably was good for him.
The Lord does work stuff out, doesn’t he.
Thanks old white guy… I bumped into another “old white guy” today. He was the man who “published” (actually printed) some of my father’s books. He is retired, but he still runs a pawn shop full of all kinds of sports memorabilia and bunches of old clocks.
I mention it because he has one really nice mantle clock (probably 200 years old, but works well and has scratches) I want to buy for $100 He wants $150. It has been in his store for YEARS.
Explain to me why he insists on the extra 50? OR why I won’t give in and pay his price? Who is really being stubborn?
Looks similar to this one and is also Imperial.
What a MORAN (sorry, HSF, but he really is… to take the time to go through and downvote all my comments… what a MORAN.)
I think the old guy won’t sell me the clock because he likes seeing me walk into his shop to ask if he’ll sell it to me for a hundred yet.
I think if he agreed to do so, I would be a little sad. He is walking with a cane and his lovely head of white hair is thinning a bit, so I imagine his days running the shop to get him out of his house are coming to a close. He’s my friend’s “boyfriend” but she’s getting a little arthritic too. Aren’t we all…
He’s another surrogate father to me, as are most of the old guys I chat with to write their stories. I got an AMAZING one today.
Wow, we sure are wandering a bit aren’t we. Drifting along like brush on a river to quote an old bluegrass song. Our mind flits from thought to thought like a butterfly dancing on gossamer wings. Oh look, squirrel.
I LOVE your strategy. A broker friend of mine told me to never invest in anything you did not understand. I have missed out on some good stocks, but have made very successful investments in oil and utilities. I tell my kids and grandkids, “buy a good quality stock that pays dividends and keep reinvesting the dividends.
Thanks… TN Patriot… Tennessee? Near Paris?
I spent a summer in Paris, Tennessee, when I was 16. My oldest sister had moved there and I stayed with her and worked at the IGA there. I felt like I’d moved to the “big city.” My hometown had 412 people. My hometown was 8 miles from my home, which was on a farm in the flatlander world of Bootheel Missouri.
So many parents paying through the nose to get their offspring brainwashed by a college; a large part of the pickle we are in.
?
Wow… I really doubt anyone would think my stubborn anal retentive brainiac son is “brainwashed” but thanks for the input.
And, as for paying through the nose? What’s it to you what I do with MY money?
Are you the IRS?
I don’t know you or your son; I’m speaking of the majority.
Become totally debt free and thereby less affected by society and the Govt.
Most people don’t realize that they have been ‘programmed’ by their parents, society, educational institutions and the military. Not all of programming is bad, yet most people don’t really put it to the test either.
I have seen many people go to college for many years only to come out and get a job/career that did not even require college.
Many in my family went to college because: it was the thing they were ‘supposed to do’ just as their parents told them.
Maybe college was worth it 60 years ago. Although the science and technical aspects that can only be learned there may still be viable.
Oh I see what you mean now… well, I agree to a point.
My son had some math talent and interest early. I knew good engineering/science schools were expensive. I started saving that money early… if you read it you saw I saved the monetary gifts from his birth.
Now, here’s probity for ya.
In tenth grade, age 15, he got overly interested in philosophy and EGAD psychology when he joined the debate team and learned to argue. I actually talked to his youth minister, who talked to him and then told me it was just a phase… don’t worry.
When he started talking about pursuing a PSYCHOLOGY degree, I handed him a bunch of Psychobabble textbooks from thrift stores and used book stores and told him that was as much financial support he would get from me for a psychology anything.
He changed his mind and decided a degree in engineering might be just as good, since I would pay for the last two years if he could get himself to his junior year.
He did. And I did.
However, when he dropped that class because it was “just too much” for him when Mom was sick, I told him a loan was his best option since I’d decided I’d held up my end of the bargain and then some.
Thank you for the clarification. I don’t think you are IRS any more.
I was not attempting to offend you. I congratulate you on the discipline it took to do what you did.
https://gogodiploma.com/university-of-missouri-degree-how-to-buy-university-of-missouri-certificate-university-of-missouri-degree-fake-degree/
You really are a loathesome blight on this blog. I wish you would just stay away from my essays and comments, but
YOU HAVE NO SELF-CONTROL.
AT ALL.
The essay actually could have stood alone. I added the image of the diploma and Das Boot just to bait you. Seriously… to bait YOU.
The negative publicity you are garnering for my little coonskin friend is doing wonders with my friends out here in flyover country.
They told me I should take off the kid gloves and tell you what I really think of you.
Oh, then when you tell me to suck my own cock or fuck myself in the ass you aren’t telling me what you think? Honestly, I figured you were being about as honest as any communist troll could ever be. You and your fake stories about your fake diploma for your fake son. On and on you go. Thinner and thinner becomes your illusion. You suggest that I have no self control! You who scream about foul bodily acts. You who lie through your teeth. You who have fooled the good people. You the purple haired harpy and your socialist agenda. You probably spend your spare time hitting old people with your protest signs when you are not publishing scholarly pieces from your college education..or is it night school classes in pornography, I can’t remember.
I have a suggestion. If you want me to stay away from your posts you could just find another place to post them. I am sure that I wouldn’t be able to find them even if I tried, but you probably think that I would hunt you down to haunt you. Don’t flatter yourself. You aren’t that interesting. Even after I incite you to write more articles, you simply cut and paste pictures from other peoples work and add a few lines of drivel from some leftest blogger or some poor patriot who actually served in the military.
I have to say that I don’t remember ever suggesting that you should suck your own cock. I don’t think I ever suggested that you could probably get your cock into your own ass. (Oh, I offered up just those two so you would go back through all of your comments to see where I did suggest that you suck your own cock.) That was you sweetheart. You are the lair. You are the con-artist. You are the antifa troll.
If you have any friends in flyover country I am happy to hear that my confrontation has done wonders for you. It is my little gift to you. The gift that keeps on giving. Just like that creaky old queef that you keep offering up. How do you clean the dust out of your drawers?
I upvoted you because you just won me a bet with the Veterans I visited today!
A really big one.
What exactly do you think I’m lying about? My father, a 3+ year POW of Japan had a word for people like who are overly obsessed with being mean and spiteful. Like Louis Zamperini and his evil guard, it included the word “bird” but didn’t stop there.
Like the nasty, nasty joke his old friends shared with me today, I won’t say it here.
Dad would never have spoken to you. He would have told me to steer clear of any unstable person like you.
He was a wise man.
Others, apparently, are not.
I do have another place I post and write. They wonder why I’m still here because they loathe a lot more of you than I do.
Perhaps, I will take your advice. It really isn’t what it used to be. You and the Nazi lover have turned it a bit sour for me.
Sorry, I just can’t understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps some drugs can take the edge off.
A veteran suggested I link to my nastiness on another thread you could not stay off. I told him I would not bring the Publicans and Sinners dialogue to the post.
I told him I would manage to bait YOU into doing it to yourself.
He bet me I couldn’t get you to do so.
He lost.
This one is the one where I informed the loathesome one how I baited him to put that nastiness here HIMSELF. Hey, Larry… you bet me I couldn’t get him to do it.
Tah. Dah.
Maggie I truly worry for your mental health. Your delusions are taking over and they are becoming more incoherent. Perhaps you still have some folks confused, but that does not mean that this charade is good for you.
And by the way, thank you for reading every single comment that I posted. It makes me feel like I might be having some positive impact on your condition. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Yes, by all means, go have a drink, Robbo.
With Tide detergent and steel wool.
Both of which I have coupons for…
Good couple of married friends 30 years ago used to buy a gold coin every paycheck and stash it. I used to think it was silly. Ah, no. Just visited them in NC mountains, house paid for, and land. Not laughing now. Wish we had done that. MG and HR, kiss and make up, this need not be a shitfest.
I met with a guy wearing a MAGA hat today and walking with a cane. He told me to take the kid gloves off.
He’s offering to pay some travel bills for my husband and I.
Why would I worry about a shitfest on a little article I sold to Women’s Circle twenty some-odd years ago. HUH?
Why?
I learned a lot in Finnegan’s Wake. I learned to assess alternative meaning.
Sure you did. You meet all kinds of wonderful people, whom you lie to repeatedly. I am truly glad that someone in a MAGA hat has offered to pay some of your travel bills. And it is a shame that you have conned him into funding your apparitions. I can’t tell you how impressed I am that you wrote an article for Women’s Circle twenty some years ago. I am sure that you have it framed on the wall next to your one page summary of Finnegan’s Wake. I am really impressed that you, of all people in this world, have divined the meaning of a book that to this day has defied interpretation by all of the greatest minds in literature. Your intellect must be dizzying. Perhaps I have been too critical of your talents. It really is a shame that the world has suffered for the loss of your insights. I am sure if you had only concentrated you could have guided us all to whirled peas.
whirled peas
Your writing is puerile. You really are jealous. You have zero creativity. Maybe I got under your skin when I suggested you should stick to writing scripts for pornos – ugh, ugh, mmm…
Have you ever sold anything, HR, besides your soul?
Does antifa issue that soul to you? Are you authorized to have a soul at all. And yes, I have sold my writing, which is available on Amazon, and many paintings, both oil and water color. How about you? Are you published as well?
You see EC, your writing is amazingly similar to maggies. Your reference to pornography. Your foul mouth and your inability to maintain a coherent thought through a comment. Can’t you see how I could confuse your writing with maggies?
Even though Quetzacoatl is out of my hands, now in Oklahoma awaiting transport to South America for the second phase of the chronicles, he will need some help getting further south from Chile. How, exactly, would a coyote get to the Mayan ruins from Chile? A packmule? LOL
Any of your kinfolks available with a pair of donkeys?
I liked your article Maggie. Don’t worry a out the downer votes. It doesn’t matter.
Thanks. Hey… I met with the folks considering my proposal and chatted a bit about other stories which might be available from the New England area. I really didn’t expect to be “writing” again. I’d decided retiring at 53 and having goats and bunnies and chickens and an EMPTY NEST was all I needed.
Now? Here I go off to Alaska! I’m scared and psyched.
Congrats on your frugality and have fun in Alaska. Hollywood appears envious of your article’s success, funny.
UNCLE?
Yes
Well, howdy. Just was making sure… I’ve been feeling a “presence” of my uncles since I started this patriotic project with the Coonskin Chronicles. Thinking a few of them are blessing me in spite of that you know what who cannot control himself.
Get your popcorn out folks… I’m fixing to tell you a story about my Dad.
Asked to get onto a PBY and man a gun by the pilot (when he was crew chief for that PBY) he said “Yes, Sir!” and spent the next 3 years and 4 months of his life in a Japanese Hell.
He was one of a kind and he died with Alzheimers. It is a terrible thing to lose one’s father. It is worse when they look at you as if you are “enemy.”
When Stucky lost his father and shared his stories, I actually felt like God had directed me here on purpose. II couldn’t even reply to that post because it hurt so bad.
Then, when Stucky discussed the cognitive issues with his beloved, again… Poppa Grooch was with us in Oklahoma because his own beloved, my husband’s mother, reached a point of senility that prevented them from being together, even after 65 years of marriage.
When I fell ill and needed help, I got HR calling me a liar, suggesting I was pretending sickness. Stucky actually commented (I saved it… I pretty much save a lot of information others discard) that he didn’t understand why a longtime member…. blah blah blah…
When I suggested nepotism, I got nasty emails. Which, of course, I saved.
And crickets.
So, this one may indeed be the last one I tell. Here. I do have another place I post.
Bottoms up folks. It is really TEOTWAWKI or bust.
I took this picture of Big Joe (who called me his “little one”) when I was 12.
I will compose it offline. It is bound to be a long story. Dad was really something special.
It will be a comment here. I won’t subject my father to the nastiness of the loathesome blight beyond a comment or two.
Sure ya did sweety. And all of those nasty emails, who were they from? And where did you find that old picture of the man on the tractor.
Honestly, if you are rushed in getting on your way to, what was it, Alaska, you should feel free to forgo that last post. Really, you don’t need to do it for me.
BTW, I have to commend you for your photography skills at the age of twelve. You truly must have been gifted…before all of those horrible illnesses. And how you must have suffered through those horrible illnesses of your loved ones.
Oh and don’t take your antifa shirts to Alaska. They are a lot more conservative there than you might be comfortable with.
Magge’s dad grew corn, HR lost his virginity with a corncob. Life has its connections.
Be careful… Big Joe and Poppa Grooch are TOGETHER up there now.
They be kinda “watching.”
And he LOVED old tractors. They were everywhere in my childhood. Even on the streets during parades.
Hauling my mother around. Doesn’t she look thrilled?
Got the picture of the old man on the tractor the same way I got this one 40 years later at his 90th birthday gathering.
With a 35 mm camera. Ever learn to use one of those, ijit?
Well, actually you didn’t. In all likely hood, even if you did take those pictures back in the 30’s you most certainly didn’t use a 35 mm camera and if you did take that picture you probably used a digital camera, or your phone. Well I guess I really don’t know if you have cell phones where you live. But that sure looks like a digital photograph to me. But then what do I know?
I’ve been busy over on memory lane, where all of my father’s books and writings exist.
I am writing a Titled Comment, which, when added in a few hours, should explain a bit more about a few things in a way that should soothe a few minds. Mine, which was really messed up by being fed a Fentanyl drip for a long time in a hospital almost a year ago now? Wow… hopefully, my mind is in fairly good shape right now. Popeye Doyle thinks so, because he checked the soft spot on my shunt yesterday after discussing other tests which may be upcoming soon. So, he wanted to make sure I do not have another blockage to my shunt tube. It is working fine… by pressing down on the soft spot, someone who knows what to feel for can tell if the tube is draining.
I’ve not had to have revision in 9 years. Knock on wood, which I have a lot of fortunately by living in a uniquely crafted and stylish Gastineau Oak Log home.
(Waves at Lynn Gastineau and reminds her the 5 year anniversary of the building of my home is upcoming… $$$ for the article, Lynn? I plan to finish before we head toward the Redoubt and Beyond!)
So the title of the comment about my father will be
IT SERVED HIS PURPOSE
The “Comment” will be written as professionally as my old mentor and college professor, Deborah Chester, OU faculty, could manage to persuade this country hick from the swamplands of Misery to write. Some days she was more successful than others. Those were the days she didn’t have to work one-on-one with me over a thesis I never completed. Brain surgery isn’t just an excuse; it is a damn good excuse.
The comment will not deride anyone. I am embarking on a wonderful adventure to place a few red, white and blue rocks and other items upon a few “forgotten” soldiers’ graves. I’d hoped TBP would be able to benefit from that effort by sending a little item around to a few places for signature or note and then on to be auctioned to benefit the site. I truly believe what Admin has done here since opening this place up is unheard of in storytelling history, unless you consider Homer’s Odyssey in the mix.
I’m not just trying to win Brownie points, either. I do not NEED them. I stand on my own integrity or not at all.
So, the upcoming comment will be a story from recording I made while talking to a man I called Uncle Max. (Martin for those searching the names on the image below. Page 202 of my father’s memoirs of his time in POW camp.*
When you realize my father is the only one waving at the camera with a smile on his face, you will grasp why his daughter is such a camera ham. I sat with JC Watts at the Oklahoma Republican Convention luncheon in 2010 (post Tea Party but pre-Prepper) because I grabbed a lady’s wheelchair to push her into the dining hall knowing full well her husband’s colors she was wearing would probably land her at JC Watts’ table. Along with the kind lady who pushed her in. Knowing what a purple heart on a lady’s collar along with her Daughter of the American Revolution emblem looks like can get you a front row seat sometimes.
*I typed it for him (NO EDITING ALLOWED) the year I went to college. He paid me $500. That paid my rent. My tuition was paid for by my Valedictorian scholarship, which I was unable to keep because I lacked the math I needed to attend the University of Missouri at Rolla. I barely passed Calculus for Believers (as the young engineering students learn to call the rigorous math classes and requirements the university requires of its entering freshmen). My pathetic overall GPA of 2.6 lost the free tuition for me and Dad only had the one big story then and no plans to compile another book of his essays at that time. And no, there are none of his war story books for sale. Those few we have left are precious to his children and people who admired and respected who and what he was.
There aren’t even any I want to cull. Although, I want to add that, if there were, it would end up with lucky number thirteen.
Are you Bruce or Peter?
https://voicesfromthepacificwar.com/articles/10-Warfare%20History%20Network%20-%20Last%20of%20the%20Gilbert%20Islands%20Coastwatchers
Maggie heading for Alaska.
Hollywood knob post launches in the bottom 20% of the page, will typically generate 6 comments.
Magnificent Mags article at the top of the page with 65 comments.
Ouch.
Look for me on the deck of TBP , forever on guard.-Hellhound
Your doing a piss poor job keeping HR in line, Hellhound. Unless you are like a mall cop whose only duty is to observe and report.
You’re 🙂
There you are HHofTBP.
That video was a real toe tapper. If you need me in the future, go to the picture of the burning platform at the top of the page and double click on me. I’m always “on deck”
-Hellhound
On deck! Hell your sitting in his chair. Really poor work there guys (guy).
You see this image I took with you know who in mind the other day?
Sure EC, but mg accounted for 50 of those comments. So really she only got 15 comments from people who were not mg.
I bet you never lose when playing chess alone. Does it make your clit stiff to fuck with Maggie all the time?
See why I think you must be maggie. You even use the same silly slights. You seem to think that hurling insults in some way makes your argument stronger. You and your blue haired harpy socialist scum can go find another blog to infest with your filth.
And have a nice day.
Nice to meet you.
I’m not really a comment counter, but I do think the loathesome blight of this site is a rather pathetic mess of human being.
For those interested… Dad was that guy top row, far left… waving and grinning to let the folks know he was coming home from “camp.”
Of course, they knew that.
As you can see, the little plaque (is that on the wall or on your teeth?) broke, but it works just fine re-glued. Yard sale anyway… probably a dollar or two, at most.
I’m pretty cheap.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/7/ohio-jury-awards-11-million-to-bakery-owners-targe/
It Served His Purpose
A collaboration between M G and Max Martin, former World War II POW (Japan)
Max Martin, one of the POWs in my father’s barracks at Zentsuji, lived in Stratford, Oklahoma, only a couple hours drive from my home in Choctaw. It was a privilege for both my husband and myself to visit him on occasion, sometimes to attend the famous Stratford Peach Festival, held annually (even when the peaches fail to blossom and produce due to storms). It is part of that Sooner spirit to persevere with all sorts of festivities in spite of and, perhaps, in defiance of, the tornadic weather which, in tornado alley, can only be worked around, not changed.
During one visit, I carried my tape recorder and asked Max if he minded telling me his story. He grinned and asked if I’d known any of my father’s “brothers” who did NOT like telling their stories. I turned on the tape recorder, asked Max to state name and date (as taught by my father, not Journalism professors) and then, with a few prompts to budge him from his reverie and thoughts from time to time, proceeded to fill the 120-minute cassette tape to Max capacity, pun intended.
After he’d finished telling me the harrowing story of his being taken from Guam during the second or third day of the Japanese invasion, he asked me if I’d heard about the day he “met” my father.
I had not.
Max said he’d seen him around the yard for a few days, but hadn’t really talked to him. He thought he looked like a big skinny farmboy still wet behind the ears. Since my father would turn 20 the following month (July, 1942), he was the next-to-youngest POW in the entire camp. CD Barnett, Dad’s partner-in-crime for this tale, was the youngest, aged 18.
My father was not as tall as Max, who was 6’4”but he was at least 6 feet and towered over most of the Japanese who were assigned to guard them and monitor the work of the crews. Uncle Barney, on the other hand, as both Max’s girls and my father’s children referred to Barnett, was a short man, (5 foot and one-half an inch, he would say!) with a variant of Little Man Complex that turned him into a bulldog when he wanted something done.
Max made sure I understood how much that bulldog determination of Barney’s had helped the entire bunch of them after the war was over and the Veterans Administration basically told them to go home and quit bothering them. Barney, like Dale Graham of Veterans Corner in Moore, Oklahoma was a champion for Veterans causes.
That day, though, Max said my father was backed up against a stack of produce crates which the prisoners were unloading for local delivery to Takamatsu markets. Max said my father seemed to be in a bad situation, with the really mean guard berating my father for trying to steal from the crates. Max said the older POWs knew that Bird* was unstable and especially mean. They avoided angering him, since he seemed to always be looking for a reason to punish the POWs.
Max said he worried for Dad, since he was obviously distraught and nervous. He was almost leaning backward over those crates with his arms behind him as instructed (so as to not present threat to guards) and it seemed as if he was trembling uncontrollably. His arms were twitching and he kept almost lurching forward toward the guard as if off balance.
Max said someone murmured that “Brownie almost got caught stealing (whatever) was in those crates.”
Max knew a confirmed theft meant a trip into the “sweat box” where damp conditions and a lack of airflow created a torture chamber for disobedient prisoners, not to mention a breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Max kept working to avoid drawing attention, but he and a couple others moved closer to see if they could help my father and the Barnett kid, who was shuffling between the train and the stack of crates, hauling more of whatever foodstuffs were being delivered that day.
He said Barney did not even look at the guard berating my father, but dutifully and doggedly brought crates over, set them down and then stumbled along the backside of the crates where the guard was berating my father. Barney seemed oblivious, as if nothing in the world was happening.
That made Max especially curious and he moved to help Barney unload more of those crates. The little bulldog, Uncle Barney, gave him an intent look, Max said, so he glanced at my father in time to see his fingers slip a loose board on the crate up enough to lift a potato or apple** and then, as he jerked his arm just enough to send the item onto the ground behind the crate, he lurched a bit as if sick and groaned, causing the gleeful guard to berate the “American GI Joe.” Max said that was what the guard was yelling at him and I remembered Dad had mentioned getting yelled at the first few times he was at the railroad yard working and he’d wondered how in the world that Jap had known his name was “Joe.” I suppose Dad really was a rube.
So, while my father was dropping food onto the ground for his partner Barney to pick up as he shuffled back and forth from the train with more crates, he was not only risking certain punishment in the sweat box but possible beheading, which was also always a threat when the POWs were forced to work amongst the civilian population.
Max said the entire escapade might have lasted ten minutes, but said it was a really long ten minutes for all of them working constantly and intently not watching the exchange.
On the bus ride back to Zentsuji, the POWs all had a good laugh at the escapade and enjoyed a few bites of whatever produce the newest and youngest two thieves had managed to procure. And, my father acquired a new nickname which he kept for the rest of his life, thanks to Max.
Fingers.
Thanks, Uncle Max. It was an honor to be able to stand beside your casket and salute you along with all of the veterans that came to pay their last respects to your service to your home, your family and your country. I will share this story with both Iona and Faye, along with the original cassette and the transcription of your story.
At the end of our discussion, I asked Max why he thought my father was so bold as to take that sort of risk when he was not yet 20 years old.
Max said it was because it served his purpose.
You can hear me sort of laugh on the tape and I said I knew my Dad really liked to eat but that was ridiculous.
Max Martin, a big man taken prisoner at Guam a few months before my father arrived at Zentsuji, didn’t laugh. Instead, he almost chastised me for making light of his comment. He reached across the bench where we were sitting watching ducks land on the pond outside his assisted-living apartment and patted my arm with his hand, roughened and calloused beyond repair by hard labor performed more than 50 years earlier.
“Not for Joe’s purpose, dear.” Max lifted his other arm and pointed upward toward the sky and kept his index finger pointed skyward long enough for the memory to emblazon itself on my mind. He repeated his explanation, with emphasis to help me understand.
“It served HIS purpose.”
###
*If you have not seen Unbroken: The Path to Redemption, I recommend it to grasp just what the term “Bird” meant to the POWs. While Zamperini’s Bird might have been worse than the “bird” which threatened my father that day, the tone of the POWs voices when they say “bird” conveys the utter contempt they reserved for those sadistic guards who would beat them for the smallest infraction for their own entertainment.
**Max said he can’t remember what it was because they ate anything they could get. Sometimes they ate things and didn’t know what they were. One time, he said, they stole a bunch of silkworms and when they realized what they had, they cracked the silk cocoons open and ate them anyway. Protein, as they say, is protein.
Sure maggie. Whatever you say. Weren’t you going to Alaska?
Am still in Missouri Territory, getting everyone around here warned about BIRDS like YOU.
And… watching that Big Muddy rise around dry dock.
The name on the actual book is Joseph Rust Brown. How is max involved? How are you involved? How does your story and the pictures that you posted from somebody else’s book related to the book that you allege to have written?
Just wondering. Seems like plagiarism to me.
That is my father, Big Joe… the man himself, as people around here called him.
By the way.. my father is not at the BOCO Vets Cemetery as seen flying all the flags for the summer, but there is a marker being set for him there at that cemetery above, as well as one for Poppa Grooch for his service to our country during Korea.
I loved that little Italian father of mine too. And he called me “daughter” too.
When he told me, a few days before he died, he wasn’t going to make it to Missouri with us, I asked him to see if “whomever” the Lord sent to pick him up would bring him here, to our land we already owned so he could see it and bless it.
In that gruff, COPD-destroyed voice, he grumbled… “I think I’m gonna ask. I really am.” And then he launched into a coughing fit that reminded me why I didn’t say things that required his response.
I’m pretty sure he made it here because, Dear Lord God in Heaven… I am blessed beyond anything I deserve. Thank you, Jesus. Thank You, Lord.
I PERSONALLY think it was the WARRIOR Angel Michael, who stopped by.
I seem to have gotten a bit feisty since moving here.
This is my rodeo-romping country-music singing cousin who shot our last deer (thank goodness… I got sick the next year and needed the protein.)
That’s ME with the big dog hiding the big gun.
Hey, EC? My cousin played the gee tar (the one signed by Loretta herself) at the last family reunion Dad was able to attend and she sang a little song she wrote called “My Uncle Joe!”
It’s a pleasure to read your running story. Hollywood ain’t got none to tell and certainly no family that will claim him.
I don’t like this new name as much as the last, but I do hope that you don’t intend to continue the harassment under a different alias.
Thank you…
It was past time to do this. And he still doesn’t GET it.
Have you vomited up all that jism? How was that bait I left for you? It was some really good STANK BAIT, wasn’t it?
Your eloquence is matched only by your good looks and picture perfect health.
I wanted to make sure a couple folks could find this…
Maggie,
Don’t let any comment troll(s) get you down. Your piece contained good advice, was VERY well written, and deserves the ‘sticky’ spot that Admin has given it at the top of his blog.
Thanks, Vodka.
I just wanted a few people to know it really is possible to put your kid through college without debt if you start early enough.
Who’da thunk it would cause all the fuss?
Big Joe’s 85th birthday celebration at the community center in the town of 412 people. Only about half of them came though. Not quite the turnout we had for his 80th, when the place was filled and two state senators came. (Ones we liked! not that Claire lady.)
Behind my father is my cousin “Joyce”… one of Granny Fannie’s beloved redheaded grandbabies. She was a rodeo queen in her day! As several of my cousins are now…
My Comforter tells me Daddy is laughing at the feet of our Lord. With Poppa Grooch having his neverending cup of coffee.
I have come across a millenniel who received a book from a deceased grandfather. He contacted me to find out if it is valuable. I explained it was my father’s memoirs of his time in Zentsuji POW camp and that it was written in my father’s rambling tones with half a book full of photos that made no sense to anyone who didn’t grasp my father’s storytelling eye.
I told him it was probably worth $25. He handed it to me and said he didn’t understand what it was about and hoped I knew someone who wanted it.
TBP’s official Moran? Do you? No need to reply publicly.
I’m standing alone on this one, thank you very much.
This is actually a step to far in your fabricated reality construction. It is when you make claims such as this one that you lose your audience. This is a common mistake that you see from communists and antifa. They claim to be against fascists and then turn into fascists themselves. They spew their chants because they are not smart enough to construct their own arguments. You have fallen into the same trap. Your lies are in print for all to see so when a logical inconsistency arises it damages your credibility.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Hollywood,
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He peed on a lotta people, but it seems the dude is long gone
But I just looked around and he’s done.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Rob,
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He peed on a lotta people, but it seems the dude is long gone
But I just looked around and he’s done.
Am glad you showed up to the party. Wanna tell you when you suggested I had issues regarding my father, you were close but no cigar.
Watching his mind get all tangled and confused was horrible.
Having him think I was the enemy was torture for me. A preacher suggested he pushed me away at the end so I would not see him get worse.
I like to think that was so.
I think this guy was ten times worse than old Finnegan. And he’s probably bought that copy of Daddy’s book someone is selling on EBAY or Wherever. I came across one online for sale for a hundred buck and told Dad. He laughed and laughed. So the loathesome blight has purchased it and is reading it to PROVE I am you and you are me and we are both Em Sea.
By the way, if HSF if the MORAN… who is the Maroon?
The POWs at the reunion all bought 50 of his books. That was 20 guys handing him 500 dollars. That paid for half the printing. Dad “funded” the other half.
2000 copies. That was the run and that was all there was. Probably all there needed to be.
I got handed one that is a bit stained from getting wet. Am willing to let it sit by number 13 somewhere.
(Yes, Big Joe’s kids called him Daddy to his face. Even when he was 92 years old, which he was when he died. Even at the funeral, where each of his children spoke, along with about ten other people, some of whom I enjoyed some of whom were tedious. My speech took about 30 seconds. There is only one word to describe him and I decided he had already told me what it was when I was leaving home and he told me to try to be special, no matter what I tried to do.)
EXTRAORDINARY… Dad said he decided people should not settle for being ordinary. I told the crowd (and it was STANDING ROOM ONLY Folks, with people standing in the back to honor the man) that Daddy said anyone can be ordinary. He told me to try to be EXTRA ordinary. I said I didn’t know if I can succeed, but I could tell them all ONE THING…
(and I paused and pointed to that ornate oak casket which held the man I loved more than anyone on this earth until he gave me to Nick more than 26 years ago in front of Family, Friends and Our Father. The PAUSE is for dramatic effect, in case anyone wants to know. To build suspense.)
“That man was extraordinary.”
And that’s all I said. Because there was nothing else to say about him.
Yay. Does that mean that you won’t need to take the time to construct another post before you leave for Alaska? I for one applaud your extraordinary creative writing. Not that it makes much sense, but you are trying and with all of those brain operations it must be difficult to keep it all straight. One thing was a bit confusing though. So your dad, who was Joe, who is not buried in the cemetery with the flags, who didn’t write the book, who was not in the picture waving, where is it that he is buried? I kinda got lost in your narrative. You might have mentioned it and if you did I apologize. You know we all are dying to know where he was finally planted because it really ties the whole story together. You know, kinda like Captain Marvel heading off into space at light speed because “you go girl”. Over all, your spamming efforts have been quite successful over the years so you shouldn’t fret. You haven’t stop the far right wing hatred that this site is full of, but you have diverted quite a few contributors and you have driven many away. There is that.
Oh and you do know that the VA will give you estrogen pills so you can curb those violent mood swings. I assume that you are over the hot flashes although some wymen seem to have them for the rest of their lives. It is quite unbecoming for a lady of your advanced years to be using the type of language that you have been showering on us.
A wee little touch of your Stockholm Syndrome is leaking out.
Am on my way to “brunch” with Larry and his lady-love, who happens to be my real estate broker who sold me this land… another story for another day.
I’m collecting 500 dollars from him, along with his note to you in a soggy, wee bit damaged but readable book.
But you have to say you want it, because there really were only 2000 printed privately down in Marble Hill. Dad signed and numbered every single one of them…
So, to get this one back in this way means it needs placement in hands that will appreciate it for what it is… a rambling and amazing account of my father’s visit to Japan.
I personally liked this one better and am glad Dad gifted it to me.
I imagine this one was the same kind of thing… the son co-wrote (I never claimed to co-write any of Dad’s stuff. The one time I “revised” a story he chewed my flat hinder for trying to change his meaning.
He was one extraordinarily stubborn old goat at times, but he never gored me like that goat I sent to live with Amazonian Boer goats several miles away. When I got sick.
As you know, I’ve apologized to Admin for suggesting HR was related to people here on the blog when I was hospitalized and found the list of hidden passwords sitting on an empty desk at 3 a.m. Folks… don’t hide your list of passwords where a nosy person like me might find them… I just wanted to pass some time while up in St. Louis for surgery and repair. I think I asked someone here for prayer.
Of course, ALL of you know that with the loathesome blight around here, you are NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT PRAYER.
Like I don’t say bad things about CORN around here. The big farmers here send their kids to law school.
All. Of. Them.
Except one that refused to go.
And, yes… Morphine and Fentanyl stuff makes me hallucinate, just like pain medicines did for my father. He refused to take them until the end, when the Alzheimers stole every single part of him from all of us.
If you want the culled book…
Thank you.
No self control at all.
Another story of my dad’s about being a prisoner of war… he said you not only have to watch for the guards who are sadistic, you also have to watch the people around you.
You also need to pay attention to the ones who should be standing behind you, like my Uncle Barney and Big Max and the other two or three that were going to try and step in if that guard pulled that saber?
Which, by the way, Max saw used when he was taken prisoner in Guam. The story is poignant as well, but it is part of what is going under contract. As a famous artist and best-selling author, you should understand what happens once the lawyers get involved.
Everyone shuts up.
Except the narrator. The narrator never has to shut up. She tells the damn story.
Now, I am glad you have no self control because when you get back, I have something very, very special I recorded for you last night.
Keep trying. Nothing you show makes any reference to you, or your story. None of your dribble proves anything so I am free to draw whatever conclusions I might wish. Your foul mouthed offerings do not bolster your position. Your videos do not bolster your position. Your pictures from some book do not bolster your position. But the more time you spend defending yourself on this post, the less time you have to pollute other posts.
There is that.
Not your best sweety. Take another swing at it.
How about this one…
https://vimeo.com/341194574
Loop it and enjoy.
https://vimeo.com/288804845
That is my wound vacuum hanging on my shoulder, last spring when you called me a liar and said I made up the entire story about being hospitalized. And I was pointing out a few gifts sent to me by folks here who secretly, for some reason, sent me messages of hope. And I heard them and appreciated. And, I ran out of that amber syrup that was like Nectar of the Gods.
You better just change your name and have Admin build you a safe space, Snowflake. Because there may be a no nipple rule here but I haven’t heard anything about abominable abdominal scarring.
You just aren’t ready for TBP, in my humble opinion.
I fail to see how you could consider your opinion to be humble. That aside, showing a video on vimeo is something that any of us could do. Rambling from wound vacuums to amber syrup through safe spaces and nipple rules in an incoherent fashion does little to support your lofty claims. I don’t think of this as virtue signalling, but it is related to that. Maybe you could call it hubris signalling.
Hollywood fancies himself a big dog. He is imitating LLPOH. The problem is that Robbo has nothing to complain about, he is a Robbo without a cause.
Your a beautiful gal, Maggie. I understand how offensive it must be to have somebody call you a liar and deny your individuality. The satanic entity out of Hollywood finds such beauty offensive. He is a liberal perhaps, and hates that your white beauty and brains outshine his negro husband. He assaults both your intelligence and attractiveness, pooh poohing your condition as if, as Cervantes said, you could have stopped time. But the movie Somewhere in Time starts out with an old lady that we fall in love with as the movie reveals the past. You have done the same here and reminded me of Stuck’s comment regarding a proposed NYC reunion – we shall have to give EC and Maggie some alone time. Thanks for the pics.
Instead of Black Knight, think Loathesome Blight and Arthur ALMOST rhymes with Marthur.
I had electrolysis though to get rid of the chin hair. Big Joe had strong genes.
Somebody else already put this up on this very thread. Although, to be fair, yours appears to be a better copy.
I wish I had an original idea, perhaps I should criticize a repeated video.
Both were by me… I decided I needed to add the suggestion that Queen Marthur sounds like King Arthur and we all know what Loathesome Blight sounds like.
And… just like the Blight… continues to blather as I trot away… clippety clop.
Hippity Hop. Blight Stop.
I’ve pretty much accomplished what I wanted to do, Admin. If you feel this post has run its worth out, I understand.
And preacher man? They always choose that barabbas guy don’t they?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+18:40&version=NIV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMD5nBcPrCk
And, that, My Girl, is how you stand alone on TRUE principle that will hold you up.
Even when it appears that all the BIG DOGS don’t care.
Sometimes… watching is the appropriate thing when you are pretty sure the fire is contained by an expert.
Like me.
This post might be summarized as the first paragraph of How I Built a Gastineau Oak Log Home for Lynn Gastineau. Featuring Omer Yoder and his construction crew of five young strapping Mennonite boys/men. And even a couple shots of his daughters, one of whom I tried to betroth to my son.
We will see if she gets it…$$$
I have the money for the Alaska trip this fall, but need some traveling change for the Arlington trip.
Hahahahahahaha…Expert like you. Spewing filth from your fevered mind. Plagiarizing others. Mindlessly drifting from moronic statement to moronic statement. Please give me the mygirl clone any day.
I enjoy stirring the contents of my toilet bowl. People think I have a talent for it and I like to keep in practice.
The type of bird the old guys suggested he is contains the filthiest string of expletives put together by patriotic old men.
I was shocked.
I would have liked to discuss current investment strategies, but since it devolved into what it did… perhaps it should just get unstuck.
It. Is. Time.
Yay. Although I am pretty sure that I won’t be excited to see your next drug induced offering. I am, however, glad that you think that this mindless dribble from you has run it’s course. I will gladly support you further if you need my help.
I’m so fucking jealous. I only got 17 comments on my limp wrist article. Two comments discussed my use of anywho. I totally suck dick. I need help!
It’s funny you chose a video from the wizard of Oz. I thought of poor auntie Em who said that she always wanted to tell HR what she thought of him but being a Christian woman, she couldn’t. I also cannot write the vile words that HR deserves. He is akin to a rapist whose actions are born of violent hatred towards women who represent his mother. Like a besotted member, he is unable to get to the end of his assault. For he feels not love nor pleasure that would bring relief to his rape and can only thrust more violently.
As we witness his rape of a defenseless victim who has no available window to jump out of, we see that Rob has no sexual emergency, no need to violate her, wantonly plunging into her person except to vent his hate, hate, hate, of a successful woman who has accomplished more in her life than he has in his. He seeks to shout down her stories that bring us along for the ride.
The daughter of an honest man, himself a more successful author than Rob will ever be, it infuriates Rob to see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because she is an accomplished author herself. She has wit, she has adventure, she has love. Rob has not love nor wit. He has no accomplishments. He projects his addled mind onto her, rages at her faith and dauntless spirit. He is an empty man without love, without God. He has no hope, condemned to ride around on his motorcycle like a mad Phaedrus seeking the answer to the riddle of good writing – which he may never find.
Our mad rapist is little more than an iconoclast knocking down statues of illustrious heroes because their contribution to the country’s history offends him, excludes him, does not recognize him and his minor accomplishments as a nowhere man; a fool on the Hollywood hill. He rages because he cannot knock a lady whom illness cannot put down nor shut up. She is like America, once great with bosoms that blossomed bigger so as to make Jimmy Carter desire her in his heart. Now that America has grown sick and weak, the evil son of perdition, Rob, instead of sheltering her, caring for her like an aged mother, seeks to push her off a cliff. Bastard.
Now that was just unkind maggie. Truly you devalue yourself when you sink to such low levels as this. Even your choice of mexican wrestler is not as creative as EC’s. Honestly, your feeble efforts just make you less and less of a human. Now you are just whimpering in the corner. Blindly lashing out in a vain effort to assuage your damaged illusion. You are not nice. You are not talented. You are not the daughter (if you are a daughter) of a brave man. You are a coward and a lair.
But keep at it if it makes you feel better. I really don’t care and you obviously need the masturbation for your poor bruised ego. You have tried all of your obfuscations in this one article alone and none of them have worked. Your powder is gone and all of your balls have been shot and not a single one of them have hit their mark. I am done with you.
Have a nice day.
“You are a coward and a lair.”
dumb ass
“Actually,” said the spider to the fly, “I’m the one with the lair and I was looking to eat that spider alone, but am glad you came to the feast.”
(Perhaps you never heard of the vicious Missouri Brown Spider, which is avoided around these parts by most other spiders, because she plans her meals and chews her food carefully due to digestive issues.)
By the way, when I got home from Sunday afternoon fellowship with another cowgirl I know with big white dogs, horses and donkeys to keep coyotes away, I made a sad discovery.
Shirley Godbunny, whose days of providing little meatbunnies for us and others, has passed away. I noticed she was moving a bit slow the other day and started giving her lots of fresh vegetable scraps each morning. Today, she sidled up to Scrapper, my big white studbunny, laid down on her carrots and died.
Scrapper stayed there beside her body. I will build her a funeral pyre today. I called the “real” Godmother in St. Louis (amazing that my Air Force mentor in AWACS came from a little town about 100 miles from where I grew up, isn’t it?) and told her. She was watching the Blues lose, so was already sad about their performance, but she agreed I could just burn the bunny without hurting her feelings.
My son doesn’t need a Shirley Godmother any more. And, since I’d decided the Godbunny was retired as a breeder, I suppose God decided I didn’t need to keep feeding her.
It all works out, doesn’t it.
Glad you are here.
MM… did I ever tell you why my family started calling me Maggie May? Even though it made no sense back then when my last name was Brown?
And you, being female, are the wicked witch of the west I suppose? What are you trying to contend? I thought that you attributed to me a great manliness that enabled me to fuck myself up my ass. If that is what you think then how can you suggest that I am a green woman? Or am I supposed to be the lovely young girl who throws the water on the green woman? I think you are going to have to supply some further explanation.
Sure maggie, your dried up old cunt is queefing again. If you want to continue with your communist trolling you are going to have to get yourself some lube. WD40 just isn’t going to cut it.
You know all about lube, don’t you, queer boy.
Do you think you could explain to the troll what a troll is? Do you have a mirror for this ijit?
I’m re-posting this on See MO’ Booty Blog and showing them what a real hardscrabble writer’s life looks like.
I just get no respect.
We never got to Alaska.
I saw the price of JNJ stock the other day and realized we could have almost tripled our earnings in another ten years.
Oh, well, it was enough. And enough is just fine with me.