Virgie Bell's View

Is it just me or what?

Am I so out of touch with the everyday world that I continue to be amazed at the average and the ordinary? A newsbyte announced a law has been passed to control putting children in tanning booths...it never occurred to me we needed to enact such a law...of course my mind went to all the possible reasons one would engage in such an act to start with…

The first is that you want all your friends to think the whole entire family spent two weeks vacationing in the Caribbean instead of loitering in front of the tube so you just tossed baby Sally in the booth to allay anyone’s suspicion.

Two: you wish to pass off the family as Latin in order to all sneak across the border to live in say, Mexico, or maybe Cuba, and don't wish the little one to betray his real roots. I am probably missing other reasons but I dare not let my mind go there. However, I did call my son as they have a new little one in their life and I didn’t want them to rush out and tan him.

When I lived in Littlefield, Texas, and was 50 plus, I dropped in at my mom’s house after I had been sneaking down to a booth to tan; just so I would be ravishingly beautiful, and I knew she thought it unhealthy. As I walked by, she accused me of doing just that and she was furious with me. I finally bought her candy and an apology card a week later to even get her to speak to me. She told me with tears in her eyes she had to put up with my smoking, but be blamed if she would watch me try to kill myself any further. Even though I had paid for a series of ten, I never returned for a tan or a refund.

Mom also never approved of Linda Dale tanning, but she couldn't do anything about that. Mom (or Ferol, as I called her on days she was more inclined to the humor of her daughter using her given name, but this week didn’t allow for it!), never approved of Bennie Lee running; because she thought he was ruining his joints.

MICKEY BLESS HIS HEART was really the only child that had never disappointed her.

We've been remodeling the house and I was about to hang Mickey's picture back up and just choked up and haven't got back to that job yet. You could never glow with such genuine goodness as our Mickey and that's a fact. Linda Gay was always immune to Mom's scorn because she was the baby.

Anyway, I'm getting ready for the holidays. I have ALL of my Christmas shopping done including a 1400 pre-lit tree and enough ornaments for two trees. Everything turns into a project for me. I’m even going to have a gorgeous front entrance and I know the neighborhood will be relieved as we always looked like Scrooge in our neighborhood. We have probably spent a thousand dollars on groceries which I am sure our grocery bill is the highest in this town...Jerry loves to cook and so do I.

I know our troops will have a thanksgiving meal and so I'm going to enjoy my bounty. During World War II it was announced over the loudspeakers to clean our trays, and I ate every bite....it was so different then...even with the rationing and shortages WE ALL PULLED TOGETHER AND WON.

There were boundaries set by elders and the rules were pretty easy to understand...like if you get a spanking at school then you get one when you get home...now what's wrong with that? I never got one in school so I never got one at home for getting one. Half of the stuff we have to contend with is so stupid that we have to create laws not to tan the little one. When my granddad came by and we were lying around, his advice was to dig a hole outside and then cover it up if we couldn't find something better to do.

But did you know as a nation, we had no weight problem. We had homemade ice-cream and real butter from our own milk cows, mashed potatoes, gravy-- I mean every one did-- yet no weight problems and no fast food on every corner. It was wonderful to go to the county fair and have all the junk food you could eat and now you can get the same thing on Main Street. Well, I mean like cotton candy at STAPLES. MAMA CURRY was the easiest boss in our whole family. She told me she had prattled my little behind for picking her flowers when I was little, but I don’t remember that.

So MOUTH OF THE SOUTH is at it again and I just finished Kitty Kelly's book THE ROYALTY....as Oliver North says" Now Theirs’ A War Story That Deserves To Be Told," so I'll do that tomorrow.

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