Story from Rob about Tom Johnson who did a job a lot of people wouldn’t want to do.
He hitched a sturdy trailer to his pickup and, when his neighbors’ cows needed transport, he transported him.
Yup, Rob said, Tom Johnson was known as the biggest bull shipper in Westmoreland.
(Pronounced Wesmalan, FYI.)
At the Hannah Dustin Quilter’s guild, fabric is a serious topic. One woman said that her husband had the audacity, after she made a series of shopping trips to quilting shops, to ask her how much money she was spending or planning to spend on her quilting hobby.
She replied: “How much did you spend on your Harley, dear?”
Snap.
At the Meredith Historical Society, talking about old sayings and local color, someone said that only the locals knew where Chemung was. And I mentioned a saying I’d heard years before, out to East Chemung and back, meaning to take a trip to a remote place.
Chemung is a rural section of Meredith and New Hampton. So to go to East Chemung and back is to take a frustrating trip to some place hard to get to as in:
“How was the wedding?”
“Long, boring, and too far away. By the time I got home, I felt like I’d been to East Chemung and back.”
At the Historical Society, a woman said: “My mother lives in Chemung, but I’ve never heard of East Chemung.”
Then she slipped away to inquire of her mother if she’d ever heard of East Chemung.
Nope. Nor did she know how to get there.
Which, I guess, is the point.
Sometimes I don’t think before I open my mouth and words spill out or mosquitos fly in. Does that ever happen to you?
I called my friend Marie from our camp in Franklin, Maine. Her husband, Charter, answered. Marie was out but he’d take the number in Maine so she could call me back. After a long pause while he located pencil and paper, he said, “Go ahead.” So I recited the number.
He said, “You know how haahd it is to write something with one hand.”
I pictured him with a cast or a bandage or swelling from gout (at our age, one part or another of ourselves is usually in some state of affliction). I said, “What's up with your other hand?”
He said, “It’s holdin’ the telephone, deah.”
We loves our bugs. And hates ‘em. You know the old saying, “If it wasn’t for black flies, everybody would want to live in New Hampshire.” Or the Maine State Bird: the mosquito.
I heard a new one in Vermont: How do you define black fly? Mosquito with a chainsaw.
Ouch.
Deb’s toddler -- just finding her way around language -- announced, unexpectedly, “I hope I don’t have diarrhea today.”
Deb said, “Did you before?”
“No,” the toddler said, “I’m two.”
Get it: “Be four?” In fact, she be only two.
The census taker stood on the stoop and knocked on Mrs. Burke’s front door. He knocked and knocked. No response. Then he heard a voice from across the road: “Ain’t nobody there but me, and I’m over here.”
Dad, Carolyn said, was not a jokester, but he had an edge.
Mother made hot dogs for lunch, but had no rolls, so she covered the dogs with chili. Dad looked at the display on his plate and said, dryly, “Is it to be or has it been?”
