Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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The Year I Almost Went to The Masters

When I moved back to Oklahoma from Rhode Island I went to work for Coburn Optical.  Their main line of business is the manufacturing of the machines that other companies use to modify lenses to mount in eye glasses.  They also have a division that takes orders to modify and mount lenses.  I was young, still working on my education, and my work experience had been in restaurants, factories and warehouses.  I was a warehouseman there.  I worked there from 1973 to 1976, leaving to move to Oklahoma City to pursue my educational goals.

My father had left his position with Kaman Aerospace and moved back to Muskogee, OK where my mother had been living for a while.  Looking around for a job he found one with Coburn and started there shortly after I left.  He moved up rapidly and after a while was managing the division that prepared lenses for other companies.  Part of his responsibilities involved making Continue reading “The Year I Almost Went to The Masters”

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Family Reunion Time???

I recently joined FamilySearch.org, a genealogy site ran by the Mormons aka The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-Day Saints.  It is really a wonderful genealogy tool and free… at least I have not stumbled across anything I need to pay for.

Several genealogy sites/organizations have joined together and are having a RootsTech conference, both physically and virtually March 2nd and 3rd. I have been receiving emails about it with the  snippet above from one coming in yesterday.

While the vast majority of my cousins are wonderful souls, 14,626 might be a little overwhelming! And given my semi-hermit introverted nature, ¡Ay caramba!

The derriere you see running away from the mass of 14,626 is mine. Insert your favorite smiley face here.

And so it goes.

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Word of the Day – Caliche

  • Noun: Caliche
    1.  a mineral deposit of gravel, sand, and nitrates, found especially in dry areas of South America
    2. an area of calcium carbonate formed in the soils of semiarid regions.
  • Synonyms:
    1. hard-pan
    2. stone
    3. dirt
    4. soil
  • Usage:
    1. “Finally, we arrived at a small white frame house with a caliche driveway.”
  • Encountered:
    1.  While reading the pre-publication edition of I Want to Live by Helen Imagene (Jean) Jones Felfe.  Jeanne Felfe has recently finished curating/editing the manuscript of this book that her mother wrote 40 years ago, but that was never published.  Stayed tuned for publication details.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Día de la Diversidad Cultural 

Columbus Day is still a Federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the Monday closest to the 12th of October.  However, many states are renaming it, terming it Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and rightly so. If you have read the history of Christopher Columbus he was not a moral person. His treatment of indigenous people and people of color in general was abhorrent.  Normally, I try to understand historical figures in Continue reading “Día de la Diversidad Cultural “

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Just call me Dr. Frankenstein

Señora and I went for a short stay a Pere Marquette Lodge to celebrate the February triplet of her birthday, Valentine’s Day and the anniversary of when we met, all happening within five days of each other.

Dr. Frankenstein’s Most Current Operation

For reasons inexplicable, early in this couple’s fiesta I related to Señora a behavior my ex developed late in Continue reading “Just call me Dr. Frankenstein”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #8,069

yeah I know you did not ask!

As you surely know, the primary sensory input for canines is the sense of smell. Our particular canine, Princess Lily, has the common but  troubling habit of rolling in whatever odoriferous substance she can find. This seems to be some sort of bold statement for dogs – here I am, I know you can smell me now.

Of course, this results in Señora giving The Wee Dog frequent baths. Lily tolerates these baths, but just barely. But she is so happy when they are over that she runs around the house crazily for five minutes. Señora being Señora, chases the ecstatic Lily and everyone is having a good time.

Thinking about this other day I came to the conclusion that if our precious little dog was human she would  dress in wild, bold, colorful clothes that would generate jokes about needing sunglasses.

Loud smells, loud clothes, all in the same ballpark… smell me, look at me!

And so it goes

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Señora

I love this picture of Señora. It was taken in 2008 on the occasion of a group of us going skydiving. After jumping out of a semi-good airplane she has been ready for any adventure… including yours truly.  What a trooper!

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Pete Morton at Focal Point

One of Señora‘s and I favorite musicians, the British folk singer Pete Morton will be at the Focal Point March 16.  We will absolutely be there.  Hope to see you there too.

A man, his guitar, and simple touching lyrics…

If you want to know more… Here is a link to Pete Morton’s website.

To buy tickets for the concert follow this link: Pete Morton @ Focal Point

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Mama Carr’s Poke Bonnet

The book, Dictionary of Word Origins by Jordan Almond, magically appeared in the downstairs throne room. Knowing my propensity to read during my regular regal ruminations, knowing my love of words,  Señora finding the book at an estate sale,  bought it and placed it in the throne room.

This morning I came across the following entry:

Poke bonnet: This bonnet got its name from the fact that the front of it “poked out” far beyond the face. A bonnet that didn’t do so was called a “kiss-me-quick”.

I cannot think of my mother’s mother, my grandmother, who the whole world called Mama Carr, without picturing her wearing her poke bonnet.  While she did not wear it on her occasional trips to downtown Checotah, with chickens to care for, a garden to look after and a cow to milk, she was routinely outside, putting on her bonnet if it was the less bit sunny. Surprisingly, when I looked through Continue reading “Mama Carr’s Poke Bonnet”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,560

yeah I know you did not ask!

I wonder if at the various universities and colleges that teach Internet technologies if there are special writing classes, perhaps in the Marketing Department under Internet.

There seems to a certain, very common style of article on many websites.  There is a teaser headline that grabs your attention, so you open the article. You then start reading or perhaps scanning to through the article to find the tidbit that attracted you, but it is not readily apparent. So you scroll, and scroll some more trying to find it.  As you do so you go past one advertisement after another.  If you are exceedingly lucky you find the tidbit towards the end of the article, but it frequently has an O. Henry twist to it.  Not uncommonly, however, there is nothing in article that relates to the teaser.

It is amazing what we humans are willing to do to other humans in the endeavor to extract money from them.

And so it should not go.