GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE OCTOBER 23, 2025

I hope you are well, fit as a fiddle and kicking high this morning. We had a great lunch visit from a dear friend yesterday, and had a lunch of some fine barbeque sandwiches from Baby C. J.'s Barbeque in Portal. This anonymous friend picked them up on the way over here, and it was mighty fine. Once again, I was on the mend and not having eaten much since Friday of last week, I was really hungry. I do not drink tea much because living alone and being single, I do not make it for myself.

The tea from Baby C. J.'s was ever bit as good as the food. I had forgotten how good a quality glass of tea could be. If I make tea for a meal I prepare for company, it has to be Luzianne. Tetley will do, but only in a pinch. I hope you enjoyed babee Conway's fill-in post for me yesterday, he had not been on here for a long time, and I appreciate the kind response to him, it made his day too. He's a good kid, and so is his brother, Merle. My doctor wanted me to have a sleep study, and I was not about to go to a sleep clinic.

With no plans to sleep there while being monitored, but he said it is now done at home. I still did not like the idea of having to wear cumbersome monitors, or such, but of course I agreed as he is a good doctor and I will always follow his advice. The guy from Blackstone Medical called for my information and told me to expect the device in the mail shortly. When it came in a small and almost weightless box, I was surprised indeed. It consists of a large plastic ring worn on the finger. That is it!

A big, gray and black plastic ring that is maybe the size of a Superbowl ring. That is amazing. I must wear it tonight and tomorrow night then return it to Blackstone using the shipping labels that were included. Technology is amazing. Oh, my friend brought boiled peanuts today also. It is hard to beat a sack of boiled peanuts. I was thinking today that Ziploc bags have replaced the small brown paper bags that were sold in for so very long. I miss those, but yes, they could get soggy.

If they did, the bottom would fall out, but that was rarely a problem for most of us. We ate them before the bag got soggy. Many of us grew up in the brown paper bag age, so-to-speak. A few cookies from the cookie jar on the checkout counter of a mom and pop store, penny candy, jawbreakers and such, a nickel's worth of small fishing corks, ten cent's worth of crickets for fishing, some BBs, and yes, boiled peanuts came to us in the lil brown sacks.

You also recall when grocery bags, always called, "Piggly Wiggly" bags even if they came from the A&P or the Red & White Store, or whichever. It was a generic name, akin to using Coke to mean any soft drink brand. You must remember that, ya know, "what kind of Co-Colar do y'all want?" "I want Grape, I want orange, etc.." Yep, Piggly Wiggly bags were used to cover our school books, if you recall they were marked to be used for that, and had patterns on them.

We drained fried chicken or fish on them, mealed or floured chicken shaken in them, they were poor folks' luggage, and storage bins. Grocery bags and empty Sunbeam bread wrappers, were our lunch boxes, tupperware, and used every day of our lives in some manner. oh, and one use for those small brown bags that I really miss, was when I got pints of whiskey in them...NO, just kidding, I do not miss those at all, no, what I really miss was when buying seed for the garden, they would place the scoops of seed in them.

Then roll them down as flat as the seed would allow, and tape them shut with masking tape, and use an old-timey grease pencil to mark the bags. It was a simple thing, and I miss those simple things. Ah, "the good old days," maybe they were not truly the good ole days, but those did work better for the remembering of them, than a heap of them that came after. That last sentence is one to ponder. I love y'all, I love that y'all love my boyz, and maybe even me just a bit.

The feeling is mutual. As Dr. J. Vernon McGee would say, "may God richly bless you, my beloved." What a man of God he was. I look forward to the day when days are no more, and I will sit with him.

..... NUMBERS 6: 24-26 KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me