By Shirley O’Kealey

Everyone brings joy. Some when they arrive. Some when they leave.

If you took all the students who fell asleep in class and lined them up, they’d be a lot more comfortable.

Just because I made it up doesn’t stop it from being true.

I hear grapefruit juice is good for the eyes. I’m glad, because I just got squirted.

Why aren’t balloons made with ties so you don’t have to tie them and yourself in knots?

My kids keep straightening the grapefruit knife.

George Washington wasn’t the only one who copped down a cherry tree. I did too, only I never had to admit it. My mother didn’t hesitate to tell my father. “THAT SHIRLEY did it!” I was known as “that Shirley” usually spoken in angry, accusing tones. I, about fourteen, had only been doing what any thinking girl-teen would do, trying to get a tan in my backyard, and those little worms, you know the kind, hanging from their silken strands, kept dropping on me. What could I do? My father had an assortment of saws, carefully sharpened and hanging proudly on the basement wall, so it was the work of only a moment to cut through that pesky young tree with its identification tag still hanging on it. He searched the house for me, and my mother would have helped except she had supper to get ready. I hid out for a couple of days in the attic space behind my bedroom closet. My brothers knew where I was, and were considering telling. What was in it for them? Other than his initial rage, there was no follow-up; there were no consequences as he was a busy man. I was a much tougher parent. And now, full circle, I am looking for a little dwarf tree to plant in my small backyard. I think a crisp and hardy apple. My kids are way beyond their teen years, thank God.

*Do you remember how the sheets smelled after hanging on the clothesline in the sunshine, and hearing the flap, flap as the breeze caught them up? Happy children would play tag running in and out, wrapping the sheets around their bodies with just a grin visible. Modest women (are there any left?) hung their undies inside the pillowcases. You could figure out a woman’s personality by the way she strung things up: sheets first and tablecloths, all the tea-towels together, hubby’s shirts straight and clean, children’s clothes all patched up, dishrags last, from the biggest and freshest items to the smallest. I got a whiff of wood smoke yesterday and it brought back memories too. I don’t mean a forest fire or trash burning, but something from a wood stove or fireplace, gentle and sweet and REAL.

”What is more cheerful than an open woodfire? Do you hear those little chirrups and twitters coming out of that piece of wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and bluebirds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom in the spring.” T. Aldrich

*Would you like to know how to make a Thrifty’s cookie taste good, or to be kind, taste better? I prefer their oatmeal cookie with raisins. Keep a bag of them in the freezer. Take one out, unless you have a visitor, then take two, put them on a small plate, surround them with fresh walnuts (also kept in the freezer) and warm them in the toaster-oven. If you want to impress, make some vanilla icing and slather them with it.

”There comes a time when ritual has to be modified to fit the circumstances.” M. Lasswell

At a senior’s centre two friendly guys gave me a hug at the door to the singalong room. It was my first time there. They were standing on either side of the door and both hugged me at the same time so there was no escaping. I think one even kissed me on the cheek but I was so confused, I don’t quite remember. At the end of the session the announcer thanked everyone for the jobs well done, and these two got a special thank you because the regular greeter was away and they had been asked to fill in at the last moment.

Another day, I was sitting alone at a table eating lunch when a rather shy old fellow sat down at the same table and asked if he could tell me a joke. I said, “Certainly. Please do.” Well, there was this guy-broom and a gal-broom, and he asked her out for a date. She told him, yes, but that she had a little whisk at home and that she would have to bring him along. “What!” he replied. “You have a whisk at home and we haven’t even swept together!”