A Place of Reflections

FAMILY STORIES ~ Here's the thing, they are as you remember them in your own life or as best as you can recollect the telling of other stories, some from before your own time spoken by other family members. Just like the orally told origins and family provenance of some of the items shown on the Antiques Road Show (television show on PBS), they can be accurate, partially accurate with some additional information provided right there, partially inaccurate or even totally inaccurate. The point is they are family stories. You have to 'call 'em as you see 'em' and simply do the best you can do. Sometimes they are patchwork pieces put together from long, long ago memories and family hearsay. I had the hardest time putting together  Blackie and Me   because my old lady brain had to reach back to some of my very earliest childhood memories and historical family hearsay to piece it together continuing with a very...

Image Credit: Amazon dot com   This is Part III of how the movie "Two Mules For Sister Sara" , especially the hat worn by the character Hogan played by Clint Eastwood in that film, other spooky factors and just dumb luck saved me from harm. (Shirley MacLaine played the role of Sister Sara in that movie.) If you need to 'catch-up' with this story here are the links for Part I and Part II. Part I ~ How ~ Two Mules For Sister Sara ~ Saved Me Part II ~ How ~ Two Mules For Sister Sara ~ Saved Me GETTING TO CLOSING TIME ~ Here I am on Sunday evening/night waiting on a bar full of bikers, having checked the big gun belonging to the leader of the bikers (whom I have designated Mister Eyes) behind my bar. During the evening I cut a roll of quarters in half, put each half in its own bar glass. I took one glass to the ladies at the booth with their leader (Mister Eyes) and the other man. I took the second glass with half ...

Image credit: Amazon dot com  PART II of how the movie "Two Mules For Sister Sara" , especially the hat worn by the character Hogan played by Clint Eastwood in that film, other spooky factors and just dumb luck saved me from harm. (Shirley MacLaine played the role of Sister Sara in that movie.)  If you need to 'catch-up' here is  Part I ~ How "Two Mules For Sister Sara" Saved Me FRIDAY NIGHT ~  After going home from work catching a quick shower and changing into some appropriate clothes and shoes, I went right to the bar. The first thing I noticed was freshly printed and laminated signs on the doors and posted throughout the bar about that weekend's hours. I thought about my lady boss and all the things she had to do to get ready to fly to Mexico and that was pretty cool that she had thoughtfully did those signs, got the turnaround for their completion and got them posted before she left. The gal on duty did a quick introduction to my ...

Image credit: Amazon dot com This is how the movie "Two Mules For Sister Sara" , especially the hat worn by the character Hogan played by Clint Eastwood in that film, other spooky factors and just dumb luck saved me from harm. (Shirley MacLaine played the role of Sister Sara in that movie.) Today I flinch, cringe and get silently peeved when my daughter sometimes says, "You have no life, you need to get a life."  I like what life I currently have. I once had a busy life, a working life. Often my working life was easily 16-18 hours per day because I worked both full and part-time jobs every week.  Working like this fed my compulsion to keep moving, to stay busy. I was young, I was full of energy. I was proud of the money I earned. The other truth is earning this money kept me running ahead of my own insecurity, that spectral vision of endless, miserable and abject poverty that I was sure would over...