April 26 '03

Volume 360


Locked Out Examine Technology Closely

I don't rememberSpare Needed the exact reason my daughter and her two youngest girls came to visit us a few weekends ago. It only matters that she came. I've learned that Rayanne may change her mind in midstream, so it's hard to adjust my plans to fit her schedule. She's apt to arrive on a Friday afternoon, eat supper, then stay until her husband gets off work in Tupelo, gather up her brood, and drive back to Belmont. But, it's an even chance she'll spend the night, and even if she brings the necessary items for overnight, it's never a sure thing.

Some Friday evenings my driveway looks like a used car lot and cars at the front of the lineup are often at the mercy of those blocking them from leaving. It was probably a blocking situation that prompted Rayanne to hand me the keys to her van as we exited the house to find an automobile to take us to the grocery store, though the specific evening may not have been a Friday.

I don't recall why we stopped by Aunt Jo's house on the way to the grocery store, either. I just remember leaving the key in the ignition after turning the motor off. That's not something I ordinarily do, as I habitually lock my car whenever it's not parked in my driveway, and I never, never, leave the keys in the car and then go inside the house. Okay, I'm not counting warming up the car in the wintertime to defrost the windshield, but excluding those occasions it's a never.

I remember telling Rayanne, at the time, I was leaving the keys in the car. I think I did so because I don't like carrying additional keys in a pocket already filled with keys, nail clippers, and loose change.

Since we only needed a few items from the grocery store, Rayanne and her two girls stayed in the van after I coaxed Barbara to go inside with me. Again, I left the keys inside the van, because I presumed Rayanne might want to turn the air conditioner on if we were gone longer than expected. I should have known she couldn't stay put for five minutes.

Sure enough, Barbara and I were about to head down the first aisle when I looked back to see Rayanne, Merilese, and Katherine coming in the front door. We waited for them to catch up with us.

"You do have the car keys, don't you?" Rayanne asked, looking me squarely in the eye.

"Well, no, I don't," I responded in an exasperated tone. "I thought you were staying in the van."

Our conversation was about to escalate into a shouting match when Candy Robinson strolled up with her basket, cheerfully greeted us, and asked, "How is everyone today."

"Not too good," I heard myself saying. "We're in the middle of a family feud."

After hearing our situation, Candy loaned us her cell phone in order for Rayanne to call Anson at work to find out the whereabouts of the extra set of keys. They were back in Belmont, he told her, so it did not seem advisable to strike out to Belmont (70 miles away) to get them, plus we had to first get back to my house. Candy was most sympathetic and helpful, offering to take us home if necessary. However, instead of accepting her generosity, we elected to find someone to open the van.

I went to the office of the store and asked for the number of a locksmith and was told to contact a local wrecker service. Using a phone near the customer service window, I talked to someone who assured me help would be on the scene in a matter of minutes. Barbara had finished gathering up whatever it was we had stopped to buy and was in the checkout lane when the locksmith arrived and Rayanne went outside to confirm he had located the right van.

Meanwhile, Barbara summoned me to pay for the groceries. As I looked up, I saw the locksmith driving away. Rayanne was about to buckle Katherine into her car seat when Barbara and I walked outside.

"How'd he do that so quick?" I questioned, using less than perfect grammar and wondering if the locksmith had some sort of keyless universal remote device to unlock vehicles.

The sheepish smile on my daughter's face told a different story.

"It wasn't locked," she confessed. "I locked the door when I got out, but I think I remember now that this van has a safety feature so that with the key in the ignition, the doors won't lock."

It's in moments like these that I wonder how two dark-haired, dark-eyed parents could produce a blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter. In ages past, suspicious minds and wagging tongues conjured up many a different explanation for such a rare occurrence, but, these days, geneticists say it's the result of a recessive gene. It's also in moments like these that I don't discount the validity of all blond jokes.

"I offered to pay him for coming up here," Rayanne explained, "but he wouldn't take any money."

Not completely convinced of the vehicle's safety feature, I tested it once everyone was inside. Sure enough, if the key is in the ignition when the driver's side door lock is engaged, the lock disengages as soon as the door shuts.

I'm not the most sympathetic person you've ever met when it comes to keys locked inside a vehicle. I figure if I can carry a spare key for my car inside my billfold to use in such an emergency other folks can do similarly. Some folks hide a key in a magnetic key holder and fasten it to the underside of their car. Some women keep a spare automobile key inside their purse. I only had to lock my keys inside a car once to learn a valuable lesson in preparedness.

Only a couple of weeks would pass until Rayanne’s propensity to lock herself out of her van would resurface. This time, she was at her home in Belmont. She insists that Katherine pressed the door lock as she was being taken from her car seat. Katherine remains mum on the subject. I tend to believe Rayanne’s account since Katherine has pushed a lot of buttons of late, including some important ones at my house. After powering down my computers, a few weeks ago, she is temporarily banned from the computer room. Her Nana is more lenient. Two weeks ago Katherine turned off our Bunn coffeemaker, and no one discovered it until cold water started filtering through the coffee. She still has the run of the kitchen.

Unfortunately, for Rayanne, both sets of keys were locked inside the van. I heard this tale second hand from my wife, so I don’t know why one set was not kept somewhere else, and Barbara didn’t explain how the spare set came to be inside the van. One thing is now certain; the safety feature noted earlier does not apply to locks being activated from the passenger side or door other than that of the driver.

Apparently my preaching the gospel regarding having a spare key in a safe place has fallen on rocky ground. My example has gone unheeded, but I shall not falter. Nay, I shall stay the course and continue to preach "spare" as the means by which we must be saved, at least from ourselves.

Oh, let it be noted that the Belmont police still aid damsels in distress who find themselves locked out of their vehicles.


Runaway Something To Cry About

Did you ever run away from home as a child? How about as a teen? I didn’t, but that’s not to say I never considered it. My parents didn’t treat me cruelly, but they surely didn’t cater to my every whim, which to a child may seem cruel.

I don’t recall a specific time when I considered running away from home, but I’m sure I had more than one such thought. However, I was either too practical or else lacked the courage to try to make my own way in the world without first gleaning all the learning I could from my parents and finishing my education.

When I turned twenty-one, a friend at work and I rented an apartment in Tupelo for a few months. As far as my mother was concerned, I had run away from home. She didn’t understand the need for me to live somewhere else as long as I was unmarried, and I’m reasonably certain she never forgave me for it either. Mom can thank the local draft board for getting me back home and my finishing college. Had the Vietnam Conflict not been raging at the time, I might have continued to work in Tupelo.

Mom never ran away from home, either, but she threatened to quite often. Perhaps, if Dad had been more inclined to take the family on vacations, Mom might not have felt such a great desire to run away. If Mom had ever learned to drive a car, she might have struck out on her own, but I doubt it. And, even if she had left, she’d have never stayed gone for more than a few days. Her domestic or mothering side would have driven her back home.

Maybe, my mobility keeps me from having the "trapped" feelings that plagued my mother. Maybe, the fact that my family took an occasional vacation is what allowed me to "get away from it all" long enough to appreciate what it was I would soon be "getting back to." The older I get the less I care about "getting away from it all," though I think Barbara would love for us to retire in Destin, Fl, and she most certainly would like to vacation there at least once a year. Meanwhile, I’ll try to see to it that she gets away often enough to maintain a reasonable state of sanity.

I have three granddaughters whose ages are fifteen, five, and two. Being my daughter’s children they are on the go almost as much as their mom. Merilese is the five-year old and when she was younger, I got the impression she didn’t like coming to my house. She came in the door crying and she left the same way. She also spent what I felt was an inordinate amount of time crying while she was with us. She seemed such an unhappy child. She seemed a prime candidate for running away from home, except for her age. More accurately, she seemed a prime candidate for what my dad called, "having something to cry about." Dad was a big believer in paddling one of us when it seemed we were crying for no apparent reason.

His, "If you don’t stop that crying, I’ll give you something to cry about," was a pretty good deterrent for any endless wailings he might have heard from us.

I can’t speak for all my siblings, but I was a fast learner in that when Dad threatened to spank me for crying I could find a way to stop.

I’m sure my daughter and son were similarly threatened by their father, too, and I imagine my daughter has been guilty of perpetuating this family tradition with her children. In fact, last Saturday morning, Rayanne became exasperated with Merilese, spanked her and sent her to her room with the instructions to stay there until she could stop crying.

Meanwhile, Rayanne grabbed a quick bath for herself. The phone rang before she had dried off completely, and she answered it to hear the voice of a concerned neighbor, Mr. Floyd.

Mr. Floyd told Rayanne he had seen Merilese in front of a dog pen across the road from his house. She left there on her bicycle, waved at him, then rode to the end of the street and headed down the highway.

Believing Merilese had run away from home, she hastily dressed while barking orders at Katherine to head for the van, explaining to a confused two-year old that Merilese was on her bicycle on a dangerous highway and they had to go get her. Rayanne was almost to the carport door when Merilese, responding to all the commotion, stepped into the hallway from her room and asked what was going on. A greatly relieved Rayanne, tearfully explained the phone call to her would-be runaway daughter.

"Mother," Merilese admonished, "I would never ride my bike on the highway without an adult with me."

I don’t know if anyone knows who the little girl was that was mistaken for Merilese, but Rayanne told us, Mr. Floyd was very apologetic for having upset her. Yet, his was a forgivable mistake and had his identification been accurate his neighborly vigilance might have saved the life of a runaway.


A Honda Buy American

Easter morning, as I made my way across the street from my parked car toward First Baptist Church, John Edward Sewell was leaving Sunday School. As we greeted one another, John Edward calmly stated, "Let’s check out Max Akins’ new car."

I glanced in the direction of several men congregated on the sidewalk, none of whom seemed particularly interested in a car, but John Edward pointed out a nearby automobile with a sunroof, the only one with a sunroof that I could see, and elaborated, "That gold colored one with the bubble or whatever you call it on top. Max has bought himself a Honda."

I chose not to check out the new car. It wasn’t because of jealousy, but I couldn’t bear to look at Max’s new car for other reasons. The thought of the son-in-law of the late Lehman Carpenter driving a Honda was horrid enough, and I hoped to avoid spoiling my Easter Day altogether by not inspecting his newly purchased foreign car. Mr. Carpenter was a Ford man. In fact, he owned the Ford dealership in Pontotoc for a great many years, and Max had worked for the Ford dealership.

I found it hard to reconcile what I had just learned, much as one might have difficulty believing John Wayne got killed at the end of a Western movie, or that Simon and Garfunkel split up, or that Elvis was dead. Some things just defy comprehension.

Because Max and I attend different morning worship services at the same church, I had to wait until Sunday night to question him about his purchase.

"I can’t believe it. Max Akins bought a Honda! What’s this world coming to?" I questioned. "A Ford man, like you, and now you’ve gone and bought a foreign car. Why didn’t you just get a Mercedes?"

He hemmed, and he hawed; he looked sheepish and slightly embarrassed by my ribbing, but I was enjoying the moment.

"Well, you know, Mr. Carpenter never did forgive me for buying an Oldsmobile after we sold the Ford place," he confessed and he must have surely envisioned his late father-in-law turning over in his grave.

"But a Honda?" I continued, unmercifully and unrelentingly.

"Well, all my children have one, so you know…" he stammered.

"That’s sort of backwards; isn’t it Max? It’s supposed to be ‘like father…like son,’ not the other way around." I pressed.

He took my teasing good-naturedly but welcomed the opportunity to change the subject as someone else walked up and spoke to us.

Max and I are still friends. He has his priorities and I have mine. That our taste in automobiles differs has nothing to do with our respect for one another. That’s a good thing.

He drives a Honda because he can afford to drive one. In fact, he can afford to drive most any car of his choosing. I drive a Ford, not because I like it, or because I am a dedicated Ford man, but because that’s what Supervalu provides for me in the way of a company car, but I surely hope Supervalu doesn’t choose Honda anytime soon.


Bodock Beau Another Little Johnny Story

The premise of "No Child Left Behind" is a noble, albeit futile, effort to educate the masses. As a practical matter, there will always be uneducable individuals, but the politicians don't yet know it. Consider Little Johnny.

A sixth grade class is doing some spelling drills. The teacher asks Tommy if he can spell 'before.'

He stands up and says, "Before, B-E-P-H-O-R."

The teacher says, "No, that's wrong. Can anyone else spell before?"

Another little boy stands up and says, "Before, B-E-F-O-O-R."

Again the teacher says, "No, that's wrong." The teacher asks, "Little Johnny, can you spell 'before'?"

Little Johnny stands up and says, "Before, B-E-F-O-R-E."

"Excellent Johnny, now can you use it in a sentence?"

Little Johnny says, "That's easy. Two plus two be fore."

Submitted by Larry Young

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