Good Times...

I just talked to my sister on the phone, and we were talking about how we as moms get reprimanded by orthodontists when our kids don't brush their teeth well. She remembered when our orthodontist back home found a piece of forbidden popcorn in her brackets and called my dad back to show him. And back then, my dad had the worst temper of anybody, so she knew she was in for it later. She said they sped home, and here's how she tells it.

"He immediately picks up the phone - 52297. 'Pediatric Office.' 'SHERRY!'"

(Okay, I know that reads weird, but I tried to punctuate appropriately when quoting somebody's quote - sorry.)

I burst out laughing, because she remembered our mom's work number and exactly how my dad would've sounded. Then I realized our phone numbers were wild back then, because not only could you leave off the area code, but you didn't need the next 2 numbers! You either started with a 5 or a 9. My best friend Amy was 92964, and my good buddy Winston was 99030. Tracey remembered my grandparents were 53221, and ours was 55684. When I went to college, somebody asked for my phone number and I told them, then they said, "What's the rest of it?" That's the first time I realized people in other cities had to dial the entire number - COOL! (And people in other cities had real flush toilets and wore shoes - WHA????)

So back to our conversation, she was telling me that she had a little time to herself after the orthodontist appointment to do some shopping, so she went to Target and got herself some shorts. And they were nice shorts, ahhhh, so then I threw in another thing we grew up with - "HAWWWWWWW!"

Did any of you stay with your grandparents and get to listen to their albums, like Jerry Clower (he was really funny with his stories about Cletus and Uncle Ledbetter) and Eddie Arnold? And you really wanted to listen to those albums, because the alternative was to watch Lawrence Welk or the preacher guy who played the piano while he talked. My grandmother let me watch my favorite show one time while HER mother was visiting, and of course it would be "I Dream of Jeannie," with her belly button showing. My great-grandmother watched a few minutes of it, said, "I despise old Jeannie," and spit tobacco juice into her Astor coffee can.

I learned 2 things at that moment: the meaning of the word despise, and the fact that my great-grandmother could put some force behind a spit.