Sunday, June 26, 2022

Thanks to Madalyn O'Hair

In the middle of fourth grade, the teacher no longer read something from the King James bible to the class after the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Why was that?

Because of the self-proclaimed atheist, Madalyn Murray. She did not want God interfering with her son's disbelief and argued in court for the separation of church and state. She won. No longer did the teachers have to pick something out of the Old Testament to read to the kids. It was OT because there might be Jews in the class. Never mind Hindus or Buddhists

So the Bible was off limits

Being a Catholic kid, I still had two years of Catechism to go through. Even if the King James version wasn't the Catholic version, it was still what my Protestant classmates heard in their church. I felt a little Catholic guilt hearing those words, even  if they were OT.


In fifth grade, a Jewish kid came to our school, just so you know. That was the first thing we knew about him.


I find it particularly funny that Madalyn got her way and now, she seems to have lost again.

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Hearing is the last sense to go


 When husband's great aunt lay dying in hospital, one of the nurses told us to speak to her.  She was on her way out and the staff kept calling her "Elizabeth". We corrected them by saying she went by Lee. Perhaps that was why she didn't hear them.

The nurse said, "Hearing is the last to go."

We talked to her, calling her Aunt Lee. She did sort of rouse, but she had no freakin' idea who we were as we hadn't seen her in a few years. But, we went because it was our duty and our desire to see her while she still breathed, thinking she might recognize him at least. Me, I doubted, but I was there.

I remember she didn't like garlic and she was a spectacular baker.

Now...where is this going?

Perhaps, nowhere, but the other morning, our first spring morning with the bedroom windows open, I heard a familiar, yet unfamiliar sound. 

I distinctly heard the sound of an old fashioned wooden screen door closing.

That distinctive rickety  old sound that I hadn't heard in so many years.  Not since aluminum screen doors came along.  All the people on our street converted to aluminum doors.  Our front door had a C in some metal work for our last name.

Classy for late 1957.

So, where did this sound come from? Last time I think I heard a wooden screen shut was down the shore at one of the places we stayed at.  I'm thinking Jack was a sophomore in high school. The  summer he grew so tall.  


That was a very long time ago. Yet, that sound came back to me a few days ago. 

 Is hearing the last thing to go?

Is this a portent?