Where's the Nickel?

Do You Ever See Nickels Anymore?

In fact do you ever see change anymore, you know
that loose stuff in your pockets...... the jingling stuff.
They used to talk about pockets that jingle.
 I recall an old song
.....I wish I were single again
Cause when I was single
My pockets did jingle
Oh, I wish I were single again

You might also hear, "He doesn't have 2 nickels to rub
together." That always confused me. Why would you
rub 2 coins together? Rub, rub, rub.

I think that one meant they were poor....most likely it
came from the depression when everyone was poor
 but a nickel could buy a couple of carrots, a
potato and an onion for a stew. Hobo stew, it was
called OR.......you could go to the nickelodeon.
Duh, guess how much it cost.

And in place of a "good-by" someone might say,
"don't take any wooden nickels."
hmmmmm  what meaning?  Maybe lookout for
scammers or don't accept a worthless token. ???
Beats me.

Restaurants and many public places that had a
rest room had nickel coin boxes outside of the
stalls. Women (in the days when there was a
division between men and women) would write
on the inside of the stalls. I recall one duezy......
Here I sit all broken hearted
Paid 5 cents and only farted

(I could never bring myself to use that word.
Proves I'm not a Lady anymore, Blue. Now
I've earned the title "Broad". )

Buffalo nickels, that's the name. There used to
be a lot of Native Americans and their symbols
on the coins.

War Nickels...... I remember the name but I had
to look this up. They were minted from 1941 to
1945 and have a large P over the building
(Monticello) on the back. Find one.

That's all I remember about nickels. Here's a useless
bit of information about the amount of silver in coins.

Dimes, quarters, half dollars or dollars, dated 1964
or earlier are 90% silver.

But half dollars dated 1965--1970 contain only
40% silver.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't take any wooden credit cards. Nyuk, nyuk

Gleanings from an Iconoclast

Political cartoonists have a rare sense of
humor. I love em. 

I know nothing about Kentucky except that I always got
confused if Davy Crockett was from Kentucky or Tennessee.
But I'm sure it is the latter. As for Kentucky, I don't know
 the govenor's name nor anything about him either but this
morning the radio newsman said the Kentucky governor
and his wife had adopted 4 kids from Ethiopia.

Newsman went on to say the Governor wasn't pleased with
this mornings political cartoon which depicted the Governor
hiding under his desk with the caption saying, "Sir, they're
 not terrorists, they're your own adopted kids. "

Iconoclast or not, it made me laugh out loud and it wasn't
a demeaning laugh on Kentucky or it's Governor. It just struck
me funny
If it's funny captions on political cartoons that you're hankering
for, take a hop over to "Penwasser Place" Al's salacious
humor always promises a morning snicker. I guess he recently
got in a little trouble at someone's blog. I didn't see what
it was but I bet it was a good one.

Hey, I'm an old broad. I appreciate a little salacity once in a
while.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yay for Craig's List

My big old tree........gone.

Here's my tree.
You can see how
the inside is rotted
away and would
withstand very
little wind stress.

I told the tree men
to leave the cut up
pieces by the alley
and neighbors could
help themselves
to fire wood
But, I hadn't
considered
the huge pieces
of the tree trunk. Snow may be visiting us this week and I wanted
the wood gone. Craig's list..... I'll try that. I entered an ad at 10 AM
and the wood was all gone by 2 o'clock.  The first man to call took
every scrap of wood. He came with a big trailer and 2 sons and they
had it loaded in a blink. He estimated some of the large pieces of
trunk weighed up to 300 lbs. But they brought a dolly and the
moving seemed effortless for 3 burly Montana guys.

I'm excited now because my head holds a vision for a new vegetable
garden, as I had given my old garden space to the chickens.

I'm impressed with Craig's List.  List at 10 and gone by 2 and even
on a Sunday.

Have you ever used that much-touted Craig's List?

Papercuts and Movie Buffs

Papercuts sting. Every time I get one, I think of an old
movie, "36 Hours," starring James Garner and Eva Marie
Saint. It takes place just prior to D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Garner, an intelligence officer is going over the plans in
a briefing when he gets a paper cut. He does the usual,
comments on it, puts the finger to his mouth and goes
on his way to a secret mission in Lisbon.

There, the Nazi's drug him, capture him, take him to a
phony U.S. Military Hospital, work on his body to make
it appear as if he had aged 6 years. When he awakens,
they tell him it is now 1950 (even with dated newspapers),
that they are in Germany and the allies won the war.
They make him believe he's had amnesia all this time.
Of course, all the workers in the hospital set-up, are
German actors for this elaborate ruse in order to get
Garner to divulge the D-Day date.

At first, Garner completely falls for the perfect charade,
especially when he sees his gray hair and advanced-age
vision but THEN he feels the sting of the PAPERCUT
they missed.

Of course, lots of intrigue and action follows.  I never
get tired of watching this movie but why does it always
come on the tube when I'm extremely busy. I suppose
I could somehow tape it for later but I forgot how to do
that so what the heck, I just drop everything and watch
it.
I love movies. Does that mean I don't have a life?
Maybe. If I see a movie advertised at the Cinemark,
a few blocks away, I toss off my apron, (yes I still
wear aprons) stuff a few bucks in my pocket and
get my movie fix for the day.

Anyone else have that habit?

When is a Tree Not a Tree?

After a tree is cut down, is it still a
 tree? I'd call it firewood. 
After a shady rock garden no longer
has shade, is it now a sun rock garden?

Dang Sam, I'm losing a big huge tree that shades a large
rock garden AND a portion of my neighbors house.  The
tree was old (next to ancient) some 30 years ago when I
bought this property and now, when the wind blows free,
it sends it's parts, like old bones, crashing to the land. I do
not want to think of deadwood piercing my neighbor's roof.

In 1865, gold was discovered in this area of Montana while
the Civil War was raging in the East. The first man to acquire
this particular chunk of land, ran cattle to supply fresh meat
to the miners.  My house was a log cabin house and my
neighbor's house was the bunkhouse. Years later, when this
land was plotted out to become Helena, the capital of MT,
the log cabin and bunkhouse were grandfathered in and the
block kinda carved around them. My neighbor had built
his house where the bunkhouse stood and that
eventually put his house far in the back of his land and
almost spot-on the lot line dividing our properties.

The old log cabin still stands beneath the added wood siding  of
my simple farmhouse. It was enlarged and an upper floor
added but I can envision the old log cabin when I enter the
cellar with all it's spooky ghosts.

Somewhere along that time, a tree seedling must have
taken root and the shade seemed like a good idea. No one would
ever plant a tree in that precarious spot where the tree is
sandwiched in among high-wires, fences, the alley and the
neighbors house. No, none of those things were there and I
often sit beneath that old tree and can see the cowboys lolly-
gagg'n aroung the bunkhouse after the evening meal, while a
lone harmonica wails out an old haunting tune.

I asked Brady, the treeman, how his crew would get the tree
out of there.

"Very carefully," he replied.
(ummmmm....we'll see)

I do know one thing. I'll get real misty-eyed, along with the birds,
as it's being cut down.

I'm really going to miss that tree, my old friend.