Travels With Becky

How about a glass of screech?

It was a full-of-laughter afternoon with the Stratham Seniors, aka the 76ers since their club was founded in '76.  1976, I believe.

Among the stories:  Grammie was playing the board game “Game of Life” with her five- and eleven-year-old grandsons.  The younger boy said to his brother, “You’re going down!”

Grammie said, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

The little one said, surprised and delighted:  “We have chickens?”

Observed:  The humor of Newfoundland (pronounced New-found-LAND) is similar to yankee humor and probably has the same roots.  For example:

Two old guys in Newfoundland went ice fishing.  They worked hard chopping the holes.  In the midst of the activity, Joe headed for shore.  He knocked at the door of a neighbor’s house.  “Come on in, Joe,” the neighbor said.  “How about a glass of screech?”

Joe didn’t say no and enjoyed the beverage.  After awhile he allowed as how he best get going and could he borrow a rope. “A rope?” the neighbor inquired.  

“Yup,” Joe said, “Amos fell through the ice.”

One of the Pease Greeters (a group of folks who greet returning service men and women at Pease) told about a chat he had with a captain from Texas.  The Texan asked what that big lake was they’d just flown over.

The greeter explained that it was the Atlantic.

“Oh,” the Texan said, “I guess I don’t know my geography.”

Your Condolences

We had great fun at the East Kingston library swapping yarns.  One woman recalled inheriting some nice china and so forth from her favorite aunt.  One piece of willow ware in particular seemed to her might be quite valuable. So she took it to her local antiques dealer to see what it might be worth. 

She explained the situation and asked for an estimate on Auntie’s “soup tureen.”

The dealer said, “I hope you haven’t served any soup in this.  It’s a chamber pot.”

Do you know the difference between a soup tureen and a chamber pot?  Barbara learned that a tureen has a slot for the ladle.  Chamber pot, not so much.

Which reminded me of a great debate:  What’s the difference between a bucket and a pail?

Give up?  

A bucket is smaller at the bottom than the top.  A pail is smaller at the top than the bottom.

Now you know.

Barbara in East Kingston told about her husband asking her father’s permission to marry her.  “Sir,” the young man said, “I would like to marry you daughter and hope you will give me your condolences.”

What'd he say?

I enjoy a good saying. The pithier the better. At my “Moved and Seconded: NH Town Meeting” history program in Hebron, we were discussing town meeting characters.  Someone told of a local character—a foreigner with a thick accent, didn’t say what kind—who loved to comment on many articles.  In fact, it was hard to find an article he didn’t have something to say about.  One time he waxed particularly long and eloquent, prompting a yankee to demand:  “What’d he say?”

Later during the program, I read a quote from James Madison, goes like this: “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”  
 
Prompting a wise guy up front to say, “What’d you say?”

Touché.  Which is French for, “You got me!”

Speaking of sayings, recently there came into my hands (thanks, Ma) a copy of Abe Martin’s Back Country Sayings, published in 1917 by the Abe Martin Publishing Company. In it Kin Hubbard compiles sayings from the Indianapolis news. Generally, I stick to New England sayings. And Indianapolis is, far's I know, far afield from New England, but some of them cried out to be yankee-ized.

Here’s a sampling—observations as true now as they were a hundred years ago.

Stew Nugent has enlisted just to get the socks.

Mrs. Lafe Bud had to buy string beans at the grocery today, as she couldn’t find her garden hat.

Next to a bubble, there ain’t nothing that loses its pep quicker than a pair of white cotton stockings.

Mrs. Tilford Moots is confined to her front window with lard on the heart.

Always wait for the second thought.

Some people stick around just as long without a chair as if you’d offered them one.

Very often the quiet fellow has said all he knows.

It’s a fine thing to know when not to know too much.

Our idea of a pacifist is a fellow who says, “When my wife fixes carrots, why carrots are my choice.”

It’s pretty hard to put anything over on little children or dogs.

Talk is cheap or some folks would be broke all the time.

The hardest blow some folks ever get is when they finally realize that there are a few things they’ll have to miss.

In making a garden, first kill your neighbor’s chickens.

It’s all right to be poetic if you can spare the time.

What’s become of the old fashioned patriotic citizen who used to say, “Well, I didn’t vote for him, but he's my President just the same”?

You’re  never successful until you’re happy.

Yankee Frugality

This story from Orford (Awfid) is actually about Charlestown (not so far from Orford as the crow flies) that speaks to yankee frugality and persistence.  Here ‘tis:

For many years the bridge that connected Springfield, Vermont, and Charlestown, New Hampshire was a toll bridge. Gary remembered a cross-country family trek that took a good three weeks. They drove all over—to holes like the Grand Canyon and peaks like Pike’s. It was quite a journey in that old woody wagon with the three kids, including Gary, in the back.  After all that time on the road, the family was relieved to be almost home. It was nighttime when they approached the toll bridge. Wouldn’t it feel great to be in New Hampshire at last?  Only one five-cent toll separated them from the Granite State.

But there was a hold up. Gary’s dad stopped at the bridge behind a Cadillac with New York plates. The booth was lit and they could see the collector rummaging around in drawers for a few minutes. Then he left the booth and walked across the road to the house—presumably his. They saw lights go on one after another, room to room, upstairs and down, as he passed through. Ten minutes later, he emerged. Walked back across the road to the booth, and handed something to the driver of the Cadillac with New York plates. The Cadillac moved on, and Gary’s dad pulled up to the window.

“What was that all about?” he asked the collector.

“Well,” the old fella said, “that guy from New York handed me a hundred dollar bill. Guess he didn’t think I’d bother to make change.”