BLUE BIRD PIES

At lunch this week, we were discussing pies and I told about Blue Bird pies.  See the article below which I published in 2011;  its title is 

                               DAY OLD BREAD

 My father, my brothers Bode and Gary, and my husband Gerald all worked at Pennington Bread. The article  "A Man Lived By The Side Of The Road" at the bottom of this article was in my father's wallet.

In the days before the Bakery Thrift Store, employees could take home day-old merchandise. To this day I do not like FRESH bread because I was accustomed to day-old bread. I find fresh bread to be doughy and just too yeasty. We could never consume all that he brought home; our rabbits and chickens were fattened with DAYS-old bread and pastries. One time Mother looked out the door and saw our pet raccoon "RACKY" washing a sweet roll!  Every once in awhile I will see banana flips and have a yen for one,  but again find they they taste yucky.

Pennington's route salesmen distributed Blue Bird Pies which were sold in restaurants. The pans were recycled and the salesmen were responsible for returning the pie pans. The pie pans are 8-inch heavy aluminum pans. When Blue Bird Pies were discontinued, my father brought home a box of pie pans. These are still the best pie pans and the only ones I use for pies to eat at home.

Several years ago, I was at Caesar's Creek Flea Market and a vendor was telling a woman that the Blue Bird pie pan she was looking at was "at least 90 years old", but I interjected, "But how do you know that?" He said, "Because I know when the Company was in business." I said, "But that particular pan is from the 1950's." The woman asked, "How do YOU know?" I explained that my father had worked at Pennington's and that particular pan was new when I was a kid and that I had several different designs of pans I inherited. He had a price of $15.00 on the pan. I said to her, "Call me and I'll sell you a better one for a dollar!" The vendor said that he was going to call Security and that he wanted me to leave his area. I said, "Yeah, tell them to come over here and I'll report you for fraud!"

Of course, I was kidding about selling the pan because I would never part with any of mine.

                                A MAN LIVED BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

... and sold hot dogs.
He was hard of hearing, so he had no radio.
He had trouble with his eyes, so he had no newspaper.

But he sold good hot dogs.

He put up a sign on the highway, telling how good they were.

He stood by the side of the road and cried, "Buy a hot dog, mister." And people bought.

He increased his meat and bun orders and he bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

He got his son home from college to help him. But then something happened.

His son said, "Father, haven't you been listening to the radio? There's a big depression on. The International situation is terrible, and the Domestic situation is even worse."

Whereupon, the father thought, "Well, my son has been to college.

He listens to the radio and reads the papers, so he ought to know."

So the father cut down his bun order, took down his advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand on the highway to sell hot dogs.

His hot dog sales fell almost over night.

"You were right, son," the father said to the boy, "We are certainly in the middle of a great depression."

---Watson Publications.

P.S. Business IS good...ask any Pennington Bread Salesman.

PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA

Just for fun, I always say that 13 is my lucky number as I am definitely NOT superstitious.

Recently a friend told me that I was incorrect in saying that TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA is the term for the fear of Friday the 13th;  the actual correct word is PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA.

See the article from The Urban Dictionary:  Of course, I love the last line:  "Though it has a serious use in psychology, it seems to exist mostly to provide an opportunity for people like me to show off weird words from classical languages."

Triskaidekaphobia 

Fear of the number 13.  

Strictly, the word does refer only to fear of the number 13, but it’s often extended to mean fear of the inauspicious date Friday 13th.  Every year has at least one Friday the 13th.   The word’s origins are all Greek, from tris, “three”, kai, “and”, deka, “ten” (so making thirteen), plus phobia, “fear, flight”. The word is a modern formation, dating only from 1911 (it first appeared in I H Coriat’s Abnormal Psychology). Though it has a serious use in psychology, it seems to exist mostly to provide an opportunity for people like me to show off weird words from classical languages. I'm triskaidekaphobic (no I'm not).

Hear the song TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA:

IS THE MOVIE BETTER THAN THE BOOK?

At lunch recently with a group of friends, our friend David said that he never knew of any movie as good as the book on which it was based.  I said, "The Bridges Of Madison County is a great movie and the book is very poor."  He replied that To Kill A Mockingbird was ALMOST as good as the book.  Several other books versus movies were discussed, including Gone With The Wind and The Shawshank Redemption.   I think the best example must be The Godfather.

The topic turned to favorite actors and when someone mentioned Kevin Costner, I told about my ongoing debate with my brother about Kevin Costner's acting ability.  Read my article from 2010 titled

                                                     HEART OF STONE



My brother and I have an ongoing "Kevin Costner Debate". I always rent his movies, but I invariably say, "I don't care for Kevin Costner; I think he's a very wooden actor." I usually quote Dorothy Parker's review of Katharine Hepburn "She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." to describe Costner's acting ability, and then Les will counter with, "But you liked Dances With Wolves, didn't you?" to which I mumble, "Well, yeah." Then he'll say, "You liked Bull Durham--right?" To which I answer, "I saw that because of Susan Sarandon." Next he will bring up The Big Chill and No Way Out, both of which I enjoyed.

I rented Field Of Dreams because of the "Salingeresque" character played by James Earl Jones. Les watched it first and then Mother, Gerald and I watched it together. In the scene where Kevin Costner realizes that Ray Liotta is his father, Gerald and I both had tears in our eyes. Mother looked at us and said, "I can't believe the two of you BAWLING at a movie!" Gerald said, "Gladys, you must not have had any father issues!" She just tsk-tsked and shook her head.

After we finished the movie, Les came downstairs for our usual movie discussion and he asked Mother how she had enjoyed it and she said, "It was OK but the two of them were bawling like babies!" Les said, "Mom, you'd have to have a heart of stone NOT to cry at Field Of Dreams!"

LOCK LOGIC

I saw this cartoon on Facebook and I was immediately reminded of a friend of mine who had four locks on both her front door and back door. When I asked her about it, she answered nearly the same way as the person in the cartoon did: "If a burglar tries to unlock the doors, he'll be locking two doors at the same time!"

I asked, "What about the windows?"

MEYER VERSUS MEYER

On Saturday, as I was cooking for the Bread Of Life meal, a man came into the kitchen and asked for me:  "They told me you're the Book Lady;  can you help me find some books for my wife?"

I was able to take a break from the fruit salad I was making at the time and I accompanied him to our little library at The Well.  I asked, "What does your wife like to read?"  He said, emphatically, "She only likes Christian books."  I answered, "We actually have a large selection of those;  do you know any of her favorite authors?"  He answered, "No, just Christian ones." Pointing to the shelves, I said, "You can look at them and see what you think she would like." but he replied, "I can't read very much."  I asked, "Does your wife come here?"  He said, "She can't get out much."

Picking out several books, I said, "A lot of people like Joyce Meyer."  I selected a couple of Meyer's books and then chose ones by Max Lucado, Catherine Marshall, and Frank Peretti, thinking it was an interesting group of authors.   I suggested, "Tell her to make a list and I'll put them aside for her;  will you be here next Saturday?"   He said that he would.

After serving the meal, the man returned to me and he handed a torn-out page from a paperback book and there were four books showing on the paper, with one book circled;  there was a note on the side:  "Got all but 1";  beside the circled one was written "Need" (with "Need" double-underlined).

 Slightly amused, I said, "You know, The Twilight Saga isn't exactly by a Christian writer."  He answered, "She said she'd read the first three and she wanted to finish it."    I said, "Those are by Stephenie Meyer, NOT Joyce Meyer."  He answered, "Yeah, she said you sent the wrong Meyer."

I said, "We need to look in the contemporary fiction;  we have had that series here."  As we looked at the "M" shelf,  there were two of the series, but not the fourth.  I said, "If one comes in, I'll set it aside for her."

Later, in telling  Les about the encounter, he said, "She'll probably want Fifty Shades Of Gray next!"

INAUGURAL

My brother asked, "Have you noticed how some people are pronouncing INAUGURATION?"     He said he'd heard several newscasters pronounce it like "in-AW-guh-RAY-shun", rather than like "in-AW-ghuh-RAY-shun" as we pronounce it.

I could not find any dictionary which gives "in-AW-guh-RAY-shun" as a proper pronunciation, but when I checked two online sources ("how j say" and "How To Pronounce") both sites gave BOTH pronunciations. 

Fortunately, YouTube has what I consider to be the correct pronunciation: