My mom used to tell me when she got mad "Wait until your REAL mom gets home!- I'm just the baby sitter" Explains a lot.
I used to tell my kids that the Federal Government is are powerless to make the states do anything BUT they do hold the purse strings and they get awful tight if the states don't fall in line. I then say "Think of me as the Feds and you are a state....." They all are now staunch little conservatives just like their daddy-and they don' take (or even ask for)money from "the Fed"

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Forum consigliere

Good thread subject jinglebob, and original as far as I recall. Increasingly more difficult here as time wears on.

I wanted to come back and post again; what I realize, and so might you all.
No matter what my Mother did to keep me under proper control; the discomfort I felt, pales in comparison, to the agony she must have endured getting me raised. .... Even now at 76 my nighttime prayers often end with,..."sorry Mom" !

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wanna do right-- not right now

One thing I always remembered was what my mother told me on the day I graduated from high school. You graduated, now get out and don't come back. And that's what I did 59 years ago.

Used to think they were stupid, now, as a first-time parent of a 3 year old at the ripe age of 46, I'm not so sure. But up for your consideration are two things my pop used to tell me and my siblings -
When entertaining relatives or neighbors:"Be seen but not heard!"
And another one that really drove me nuts as an adolescent: "Do as I say, not as I do!"

I was told:

Thunder and lighting were the angels bowling in heaven.

You can't have a BB gun. You'll shoot your eye out.

Eat your vegetables. The kids in China are starving.

You can't have a dog. Dogs bring germs into the house. (I probably brought more germs into the house than any dog would have!)

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Bill

"Your the reason some animals eat their own young" ...
or
"if you had been born first, you would have been an only child"
and
"we got you from a band of gypsies"

Going to catholic school during WW2 Nuns had us put our lunch money in the mission box for the poor starving children in China. Always wondered if one of those kids is the one that shot me in Korea in 1952. Sorry for going off topic.

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Semper Fi until I die

yup, jar. that sure shows how much gratitude we get for our help.

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susie

"Children should be seen and not heard". The world would be a lot better off if that one was practiced. "Stop crying Or I'll give you something to Cry about". Also fine advice, if enforced. "smear a little chicken poop on that lip if your trying to raise a moustache". "Never drink milk after eating fish". Everyone believed , and respected this one. "If you don't quit pouting, a rooster will roost on that lip". "Don't pee in the road or you'll get a sty on you'r eye". "Don't sit on concrete, you'll get hemorrhoids". " don't go swimming for an hour after eating a meal". "Don't keep plants in your bedroom, or a hospital room". Even the hospitals believed, and enforced this fallacy, back in the 1930s, believing that plants took the oxygen from the air. "Pull my finger, and see what happens". That one resulted in great amusement. " The barber sending a "willing to please" Kid to the other end of town, to the meat shop, to borrow a Liver saw, from the butcher". There are many more, but, those are some of my favorites.
Chubbo

My mom always told me if I wasn't home before dark the boogie man would jump out of the Orange tree and would get me. My brother hid in it once and scared the living daylight out of me. I bet if I had to walk that long dark driveway alone today I would still be afraid!

Did anyone here go on a Snipe hunt? Every camping trip as a small child, I was told about these mysterious elusive creatures called Snipes that looked like a small rabbit with blue wings. My mom had a lot of stories about them that made all the kids want to go find one. Really it was to give the adults a good laugh at our expense but I later played the same tricks on my niece and nephew.

Many years ago, some friends, and I Took a long deceased, gullible friend, on a snipe hunt. Well, he turned the tables on us, and when we finally went back to find him and have a big laugh, he hid in the ditch, each time we passed him, and walked home, and went to bed, leaving us to hunt, and worry about him the rest of the night, and the laugh was on us. This thread is bringing back old memories.
Chubbo

Poison Oak has five leaves....nope, that's Virgina Creeper.

My Dad and mom always talked about the starving Armenians. Didn't know where in heck Armenia was or why they were starving but that or the threat that none of us kids could leave the table till we all cleaned our plates was usually sufficient. Otherwise sibling payback was the order of the day.

Grandma used to say not to run outside in the dew, it was poisonous. In her defense she was from Tennessee and I've had some Tennessee dew that was pretty deadly.

I don't know about ya'll, but most of the things my Dad told me I shouldn't try turned out to be true. I've got the scars to prove it now.

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Just a shooter

Many years ago, this stupid tale was told to kids, and grownups alike, and was widely believed., as the "gospel truth". "Don't let a cat get into a child's crib", it will lie on a child's chest, kneading as they do, and suck the air out of, and suffocate the child. Lots of poor old cats lost their happy homes, when new babies came into their family's home. I don't know if it is a hold over, from that "old tail" but many people still get rid of their poor old cats, when a new baby arrives at it's new family's home.
Chubbo

I've saved these things told by my Dad until last. To put them into prospective, I'll tell some things about my Dad. First of all, my Dad at about 18 years old, fresh off the farm, apprenticed to, and learned the electric trade from his much older brother, who had an electrical business. I can remember him building a electrical shocking machine, from the crank magneto of a box telephone, cables, and copper pipe, hand holds. No one could crank it hard enough to make him let loose. He could take more electric shock, than anyone that I ever met. He regularly tested 110, 220, and 480 volts! Yes 480 volts! Those of you, that are electricians, probably won't believe that, but I'v seen him do it. He never owned a tester in his 60+ years in the trade, and always said, that a real electrician didn't need one. With this being told, I'll tell some of the things that he did, that he saw no harm in doing.
He would hold up an electric fence in one hand, and take your hand in his other to help you over or under the fence, and take the charge until you took his helping hand, but, you didn't hold on long.
I watched him test appliance cords by plugging them into 110 V. outlets, and holding the bare copper wires to see if there was power to them. I saw him hand the bare wires to both my sons to test, and when they both almost jumped threw the roof, didn't see any harm done, I remember my youngest son at about age 5 yrs. saying "gee grampaw Its coming out of both of those wires"
As a kid, when I would be doing odd jobs for my dad, in his garage, and friends of mine would come around to get me to come out to play, he would plug a nail or wire into a 110 v. outlet, hold onto it with one hand and say to one of my friends, "put her their Pal" and shake hands with him, needless to say they didn't stay long.
I guess since electric shock didn't bother him, he couldn't imagine that it would bother anyone else. Sorry about sharing the long true stories.
Chubbo

Thunder is caused by Santa Claus rolling pumpkins. (Why Santa Claus?)

Don't hold onto a door knob during a thunder storm, you'll get electrocuted.

"That is too deep for you to understand." The truth, Dad didn't know the answer either.

There is the right way, everything else is wrong!

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S&WHF 366

I am sure that is an old tale but today some people get rid of their cats because of the risk of Toxoplasmosis. It can be transmitted by cleaning the litter box and can cause a miscarriage. The risk is very small, however. Most pregnant women just assign litter box duty to someone else in the household or wear gloves.

In my family it was God's Tater Wagon.

The thunder reminded me of another one. My Mom told me when I was a kid that if a turtle bit you it won't let go until it thunders.

Well, sure enough one day I was playing with a turtle (tortoise really) when it clamped down on a finger. It didn't hurt much, but I remember being terrified because I thought I would have to have that turtle on my finger for weeks if not months. It doesn't rain often in West Texas.

I decided it wouldn't hurt to try prying him off, and sure enough, I was able to pry his mouth open and remove my finger. That was the first time I started to wonder if Mom really did know everything. I was about five or six at the time.

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Or something like that . . .

My mom use to throw me in the deep end of the pool. Then she'd yell, "Sink or swim." Years later I figure out she wasn't trying to teach me to swim.

Same thing happened to me. Once I got out of the burlap sack I was able to swim ashore...

"Step on a crack, break your mother's baAAARRGHHHH!

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Oh well, what the hell.

The earth is flat....

[QUOTE=dirty & hairy;139740185]"If you dig straight down you'll end up in China." Nope, the Indian Ocean S/W of Madagascar.

This is a fun website (for a few minutes anyway):

Antipodes Map - Tunnel to the other side of the world

Just enter your zip code and it shows your antipode location.[

The tunnel from my place ends up in the ocean west of Australia. This is a neat site. I just saved it.

This is a great thread. So many memories...

I couldn't help thinking of Mark Twain's comment on youthful arrogance:

Mine said the same thing because I wanted a pistol when I was a kid.

Here's the deer I shot with HIS revolver that I need to be careful with because it's more accurate at 100 yards than his rifle.



When it was all said and done I ended up with a kid, is that the same thing?

My brother got cooties from kissing a girl. I believe they called it Mononucleosis. I believe he was doing a little more than kissing though.

Funny my mom would often say I was a smart donkey, if dad was around HE would chime in "better a smart one than a dumb one".

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Certified Curmudgeon

Mine too, but to be fair both of them were a couple years ahead of Pythagoras in high school.

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Certified Curmudgeon

[QUOTE=phantomcycle;139735782]I was told to stop doing that or my palms would grow lots of hair

Wish I had listened to my parents...

Attached Images

hairy hands.jpg (129.6 KB, 43 views)

That the man my mother was married to was my father...that changed the family dynamic when the real truth came out