Front Porch Stories

As I was driving down the road today I was reminded of my Dad teaching me to drive.  I learned to drive in a 1957 Ford Fairlane, three on the tree.  Just in case you don't know what that means, it was a three speed on the column.  My Dad said if I would learn to drive a manual shift, that I could drive anything I wanted to.  He was right!  I taught all my children to drive a stick shift.  Although I thought my daughter would kill us before she got the hang of it.  She had this bad habit of looking down at the shifter and pulling the steering wheel to the left, into traffic!!  Oh Yeah, we had some scary moments!!  It was worth it, all three of them can get in any kind of vehicle and go.  My Dad was a very special man, and I was certainly my Daddy's girl.  I miss him a lot, he would be so proud of my oldest son.  Those two were thicker than thieves before my Dad passed away. Thanks for stopping by my blog and have a blessed day.

When I was growing up, we didn't have indoor plumbing until I was thirteen.  That was shortly after my Dad hurt his back and we had to move to the city.  My brother got my Dad a job as the janitor at the plant where he worked.  I can remember drawing water for the house and for the animals.  Think about that!  How would you like to draw water out of an old fashion well just to have a drink of water?  You had to hand draw water for everything!  On wash day everyone had to pitch in and draw water.  I used to go see one of our neighbors just to get a drink of water from her well.  It was the coldest and the best tasting water I can ever remember drinking.  Pop said, that one time his granddad told him that he would see a time when water would be more important than oil.  I think that he was right.  I can see a time in our future where that may be.  We can only keep the streams, rivers and lakes of this country from being polluted.  We cannot force other countries to care about the

My sons shop now has two muscle cars to be restored.  One is a Nova and the other is an El Camino.  The boys are planing on putting big block engines in both.  They brought home a 454 to go in one of them!  I can't wait for us to get started on them.  I love watching one go from a rusty ole heap into something beautiful.  It helps us all to have some time together and feel like we have accomplished something.  My son and his wife work so hard and such long hours, I'm glad that he has that as a way to relieve some stress. Have a great day.

It's hard for me to believe that I have been out of school for forty years!!!  I was comparing the things that kids do now as opposed to when I was in school and we are light years apart.  One of the things that some of my friends and I did was created our own comic book.  We each had a role and we would create scenarios and play them out.  One of the guys was a great artist!  We used our minds!  Kids today have no imaginations.  They don't strive to make things better or invent things.  Everything is handed to them ready made.  Even Grandam's famous Sunday morning biscuits come form a can or the freezer.  It's amazing how things have changed.  I haven't given getting older much thought.  I am in good health and can do just about anything I set out to do, but the other day I was filling out some forms, and realized that I have known my best friend for over FIFTY, yes I said 50 years!!!  Time flies when you are enjoying life.

When my kids were small I used to buy them water pistols every summer!  It was a cheap way for us all to have fun.  The down side was they ran out of water to fast.  I remember this one time, we were all outside playing and the rule was you had to fill them up outside and you could not shoot through the screen door.  My mom was inside watching from the kitchen and one of the kids squirted her through the door!  So what did my mom do?  She let the child run,  she came outside and got the water hose and when the child came back, she wet him good.  We all had a good laugh because she got the upper hand.  A few years later I was helping my mom clean the kitchen and was wiping down the refrigerator and what did I find on top?  I found several water guns that she had taken away from the kids and put where they couldn't reach them.  I really loved that lady and I miss her badly.

I know that every school and every class has a bully.  It's has been that way forever!  The times that we live in are what makes it different.  I can remember when I was in school, I was picked on at first because I was a cry baby.  No one physically hurt me, it did not scar me for life and as I matured those same kids became my friends.  Then we moved from the country to the city when I was in the seventh grade.  The first nine weeks the kids were really mean to me because I had a strong country accent and my Mom made all my clothes and I still wore pig-tails.  I only had one altercation over it.  A boy kept pulling my hair and I raised my hand and told the teacher if he did it again I was going to hit him.  He pulled my hair again and I hit him hard!  He is still one of my best friends. Bully's pick on kids they see as weaker, and it is our job as parents and grandparents to teach our children that picking on someone weaker than you does not make you a better person.  I bl

The holiday's are coming up fast!!  Anna and I were talking today about what we wanted to do for Thanksgiving.  The holidays are hard for both of us but for different reasons.  They are hard for me because my parents are dead and I miss them both a lot around the holidays.  My Anna is thousands of miles from her parents and hasn't seen them in over eight years.  I hope that my son will be able to take her to the Philippines next year to see her parents and grandparents.  She is a very special woman and I know that my Mom and Dad would have really loved her.  She and I are going to make this years holidays the best we have all had in years!!!  They will be full of love and laughter and all the things that make family special!

Can you remember being a teenager?  I can remember most of my teenage years.  Times sure have changed!  Today's generation has no concept of what it is to work for the things they need or better yet for the things they want.  All they have to do is ask a parent or have a temper fit until the adult who is supposedly in charge give in.  If kids still had to work in the field, milk cows, feed chicken and do "real" chores they might appreciate the things they have.  They believe that they have a right to a good home, plenty of food to eat, and getting to go to the doctor when they are sick.  These things are not rights, they are privileges!  I think anyone who quits school should have to spend the next two years in the peace corp in a country other than the United States.  It wouldn't even hurt to make every person who graduates from high school serve one year in another country.  It would let them know that the whole world is not like us.  I worked in the field growing u

Even without the help of those who could have!!  If all goes well we will have the chemicals here by this weekend for the machines my son has added to his studio.  My Daddy always said if you couldn't get it own your own you didn't need it, well through hard work and the blessing of the Lord my son was able to add two new machines.  Now not only will he be able to take the photo's but he will be able to also print them on sight.  We were also able to add a one hour lab, that works just like taking your pictures to Walmart, but a much better quality.  Everyone we have talked to is really excited for us to get it up and running. Say a prayer for us and for our troops and their families.  Freedom isn't free, and I thank God that my family and I live in this country.  She may stumble, but she will not fall.  There are more God fearing people in this country than those who do not believe, so keep praying and we shall overcome the challenges that lay before us. Have a Ble

Shortly after I divorced my youngest son's dad, my Mom moved in with us.  Gosh, I don't know how I would have made it without her.  The old house that we lived in was an ongoing project, there was always something that needed repaired.  In order to make room for all of us we changed my laundry room into my oldest a bed room.  It wound up needing more work than we first thought!!  We wound up having to replace all the floor joist and put down a new floor.  My Mom was amazing!!  While I was at work she taught my oldest son how to read a tape measure, use a saw and the two of them put up the ceiling tile and everything.  She built him a wrap around desk complete with drawers and a false hiding place for his cool stuff.  She took broken karate boards and wooden dowels and made him shelves for his model cars.  The finishing touch was the door!  On the outside it looked like a door on the inside it was covered with paneling in a way that it would open yet be camouflaged.  When it was

We were watching the movie The Mechanic when a scene in the movie brought back a memory of when my youngest son was about 15.  In the movie the man is  holding on to the back of a small boat and being pulled down the river.  My son and one of his friends skated all over town on their skates  and then one day I get a call from the police department to come and pick up my son.  What was he doing?  Instead of staying on the back streets these two nuts were down town, that not bad enough, not for those two!  They were holding on to the bumpers of cars and letting them pull them down the road.  Needless to say both boys were grounded for quite some time.  Holding on to cars is very dangerous!!  Kids do crazy things, be sure to show up in places where your kids don't expect you too, and don't be afraid to check their phones and computers.  There are all kind of crazy people in this world.

Guest post written by Sharon Wiles Any time I start watching a show that was based on a book series, I can never hold out until the end to find out what happens. I always start in on the book or the book series. But I guess that there are worse things I could do. A lot of the times it doesn't give me the answers that I want because the shows aren't always exactly like the books. I've learned that much with True Blood. But I'm starting in on the Pretty Little Liars series because I can't stand not knowing who A is! Well, I went online to order the book series and while I was doing that, I ran across the website http://CleartvBundle.com . I showed it to my roommates and after we looked through it some, we decided to change over our apartment's internet service to it. It ended up that I was lucky enough to find the first Pretty Little Liars book at my local library. Sure, I felt a little strange looking in the YA section for it as a 20 something b