Lesson #150,159-Some Truths That Need To Be Said OUT LOUD!!

Some Truths That Need To Be Said OUT LOUD!!

Okay, so I am on my soapbox today.  Don't like it?  Don't Care.  There are some truths that need to be said out loud.

1.  Dear Hollywood, Your portrayal of Southerners is ridiculous.  Nobody really speaks that way.


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2.  While I am on Hollywood...All of you actors, singers, comedians, directors and producers, just do what you are good at and shut up about politics and religion.  Nobody cares what you think.  You live in LaLa Land and have no clue what is going on with real people.   Well, except for the Kardashians and you know that they are all "real" people.  I mean, why are they famous?  Because Kim made a sex tape with some guy?  Okay, well, there are plenty of housewives out at the baseball fields of America who have done the same thing.

3.  If you don't judge me, I won't judge you.  It's not my job to judge you and it's not your job to judge me.  If you are gay, drink alcohol or smoke a little pot once in a while, that's your business.  Unless you are endangering a child in some way, I'm gonna mind my own business.  If I know that you are high or drunk and are driving children around, then it will become MY business.  Call an Uber!!


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4.  Most Christians aren't homophobic, judgmental, angelic, perfect or boring.  Most of us realize that we are all sinners.  Some "sins", we just can't give up.  Sneaking a glass of wine or cocktail in a restaurant where none of your fellow church members are enjoying a meal?  Why?  God sees you. Why do you care what humans think?  Oh yeah, those Christians who think they are perfect.  There aren't many of you.  Reminds me of a joke.  What's the difference in a Baptist and a Methodist?  The Methodist will say hi to you in the liquor store.  And don't get me started on gossiping.  You don't want me to go there.  Most everyone is guilty of a little gossiping.  Or a lot.

5.  Most white people aren't racist.  Sorry Whoopi Goldberg and Al Sharpton.  It just isn't true.  I am a white, Southern woman and I am happy to say that my son was 10-years old before he ever heard the "N" word and it wasn't from his parents or at school.  He heard it while watching the movie "Forrest Gump".   I am fairly certain that I was younger than that when I heard it for the first time.  I'm not saying that racism is totally dead but don't think that I am racist because I am white.  I do community volunteer work and if you ask any person/family that I have helped if I treat any color differently, they will tell you "Absolutely Not"!!


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6.  All black people aren't thugs, deadbeat dads, on food stamps and angry.  The media portrays the black community as angry, violent, protesting gangs.  If I were part of the black community, I wouldn't be very happy about how I was being portrayed.  Are there gangs? Yes.  Are there deadbeat dads? Yes, but there are just as many deadbeat white dads.  Look up what Benjamin Watson has to say about race relations.  You can google it.

7. Not all parents, these days, are helicopter parents.  We are definitely more plugged into our children than our parents were, maybe because we can look up grades online and we know how competitive college can be these days, but we aren't all psychotic about grades and sports.  I'm not a helicopter parent but I do ask my son if he has done his homework or studied for a test.  I trust what he says and leave him alone about it.  He doesn't have to be the best in his class.  I don't expect perfection.  He doesn't have to be the best soccer player.  I'm not paying extra for personal training for a sport that only sees less than 1% of players ever play professionally.  Some parents out at the soccer field think their kid is going to be the next legend! Here's a little hint...He isn't!  All I ask from my son is that he tries his best.  If his best is a 90, then that's his best!!  If one goal in a season is his best, then that's his best!!

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8.  If you hate America, leave.  If I see you burning a flag, I will come after you.  You know that thing about minding my own business?  Well, that's out the window if you are burning a flag!!  There are plenty of people who want to come to America so feel free to leave if you don't love America. Our soldiers didn't fight battles against other countries so you would burn our flag, they fought so you would have the right to speak your mind and go home and know that soldiers from another country wouldn't be at your door trying to take your rights away.  You have the freedom to worship or not. You can own a firearm or not.  You can get an education.  You can work.  You can start a business. You have the freedom to vote for whomever you want.  You can even write in Mickey Mouse, if you so choose. (Mickey Mouse may do a better job than some of the clowns in Washington.) Oh and respect our veterans!! This is America.  The land of opportunity. If you don't love America, move to Iran. You will love it there!


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9.  If you don't believe the same thing that I do, just keep moving.  Don't try to argue with me to win me over to your way of thinking.  It won't work.  I believe in God.  If you don't, that is up to you.  I don't drive a Prius.  If you do, good for you.  I own guns.  If you don't agree that I should be able to own a firearm for protection, then you just call 911 and wait.  I believe in Capitalism.  Why?
Because with hard work and an education, we have gone from a trailer park to a two-story brick house on a quiet street. Nobody gave us anything.  People say "But you're just lucky" and my husband says "The harder he works, the luckier he gets".

10. Is everyone "offended" by something?  If you disagree with the President, you are "racist".  If you disagree with a person's lifestyle, you are "intolerant".  If you are a Republican, you are labeled as "ignorant",  "racist", "bigoted", "sexist", "closed minded" and my personal favorite is "redneck".  As a (mostly) Republican, I am "offended" by these labels.  I am not racist, intolerant, ignorant, bigoted or sexist.  I did grow up in a small town in South Carolina so I may show a little redneck occasionally but only when I am passionate about something!!  If you mess with my family, I WILL go Walmart on you!! Otherwise, No!!  Now, there is a difference in "redneck" and "white trash". Rednecks are often thought to be uneducated, Southern, white and rude.  I have found the opposite to be true.  A redneck will stop and help you change a flat tire in the rain.  White trash will drive right past you, honk the horn and laugh. White trash can drive a Maserati or a truck! I happen to know several black "rednecks".  They are not an urban legend! They are real.  You will see them at a Blake Shelton concert. (You know who you are, Nikki.)  You will see them fishing and driving big trucks.  I would venture to say that Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers and the Alabama Crimson Tide, is a redneck.  He drives the most jacked up pickup truck you have ever seen! Anyway, People, stop being so sensitive!!  If a black person tells a joke about a white person (even me) I can take it!!  If I hear a joke about women drivers, I can take it!!  (I did scratch my car on a post once and I had to have my car towed out of a ditch once because I overshot a 3 point turn.)  Get a backbone. Grow thicker skin. Stop whining!! Geez, Louise!! We are raising a generation of wimps already. Most children can't fight a battle on their own anymore.  I got picked on in school for being short.  I still do.  You know what?  I don't care!!  If it offends you that I spanked my son when he was young, too bad.  We can compare my spanked child to your "time out" child any day! He may be in therapy someday but it won't be from popping him on the butt to get his attention.  He may be in therapy because of the dinner conversations with his parents and for being too honest about life and how the real world works but not because of a swat on his bum!!  I'm not easily offended.  Maybe that's why I am a happy person. #NotButtHurt


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Okay, so feel free to add to my list but these were the Top 10 pressing truths that needed to be said OUT LOUD!!  I have 10 more but I'm tired and don't feel like lecturing tonight so I'm done.

Lesson #150,158-When I Was a Kid...

150, 158-When I Was a Kid...

Okay, so when I was a kid, boy oh boy, were times very different.  No, we didn't have cell phones.  We had a phone in the kitchen with a 20 ft. cord so my Mom could cook dinner and talk on the phone at the same time.  It had a dial on it.  It was olive green.  It was the only phone in the house until I was about 10-years old and then there was one in the living room and my parent's bedroom.  Still had a dial on the phone though.  We didn't get "push button" phones until I was a teenager. 
 
We never had cable TV in my house growing up.  We lived out in the country and cable hadn't been buried out that far yet.  We had 4 channels.  NBC, ABC, CBS and an independent TV station, now a Fox station.  Sure, we could have gotten a satellite dish in the 80's but my Dad didn't see the sense in spending money on TV stations.

I didn't have cable TV until I went away to college.  Our dorm was equipped with FREE cable!!  I was so excited to have 20 channels!!  Funny thing was, we hardly ever watched TV in college and when we did we watched the same stations that I had always watched.

We didn't grow up with computers.  Windows were what we looked out of, not icons on our computer.  When we needed to do a report, essay, term paper or research, we had to go to the library and look it up in an encyclopedia.  In college, we used microfilm.  There was a card catalog in the library and we all knew how to use the Dewey Decimal System.  I bet if you asked a kid nowadays if they know what Dewey Decimal is, they would say "Who?". 

Once we  finished our research, we used typewriters to type our papers.  My roommate in college had her very own word processor.  It was awesome!!  It even had an eraser tape!!  Bye, Bye White Out!!  If she was using it, I had to go to the library and use a typewriter.  I didn't like using the typewriters.  I had to use White Out a lot!! 

I could never have imagined, in my wildest dreams, that 25 years later we would be so dependent on items that were not even available back then.  If I leave the house without my cell phone, I panic.  What did our parents do in carpool line rather than look at a phone and checking emails?  Oh, that's right.  They MADE us ride the bus!!  How did they know what to do all day long without constant texts from people telling us what to do next?  Oh, that's right.  They made a "To Do" list and went by that.  If it wasn't on the list, it didn't get done until the next day, when a phone call was made letting them know what to do.  What if a child was sick and a parent couldn't be reached at home or at work?  Oh, that's right.  We went to the nurses office and the nurse would tell us to suck it up until one of our parents could be reached or we would be sent back to class.  When we got home, if we forgot a book at school, that was just too bad.  My parents wouldn't drive back to the school to save my butt.  I should have remembered to bring all materials home with me.  What if I had left something at home that I had forgotten and didn't bring to school?  Same thing.  I got a big, fat ZERO on the assignment because my parents wouldn't bring it to me, the teacher wouldn't let us go to the office and use the phone to call home for it and the teacher wouldn't let us turn it in the next day.  If the assignment was due on Tuesday, it wouldn't be accepted on Wednesday.  No, my parents and teachers weren't terrible people.  That's just the way it was.  This would not go over well with today's helicopter parents!!!!

A "Tweet" was something that a bird did.  A "Post" was something that held up a fence or a sign.  A "Wall" wasn't something to write on.  (You would get into BIG trouble for that!!)  A "Feed" involved eating.  "Text" was something in a book that you probably didn't want to read.  A "Pin" was something to hem a skirt with.  A "Map" was something that was folded up in the glove compartment and you planned your trip by that map and you had better not miss a turn or you would drive 50 miles out of your way and have to stop at a gas station to figure out where you were supposed to turn.  A "Selfie", "FaceTime" and an "App" wasn't a thing.  We took pictures with a camera and had to wait 7 days to see if they were worthy of being "posted" in a picture frame.  We wrote letters.  We passed notes in class.  We waited for hours by the phone waiting for our boyfriends or a boy we liked to call us. (Back then girls didn't call boys!!)  Yahoo was something that cowboys would say.  Google was something that you did with your eyes.  If you wanted to know the weather, you had better watch the news at 6:00 or 11:00pm and you had to hope that the weatherman was right.  We didn't have spell check.  We had to learn how to write in cursive.  A "Snap Chat" would have been considered a quick talk.  If we wanted to hear a song, we had to call a local radio station and make a request.  Then we would record it on a cassette tape and hope that the DJ didn't talk over the beginning or the end.  A "flash drive" probably would have been someone "mooning" you as they drove past.  A "newsfeed" would have been the teleprompter that a newscaster would read on the news, which back then would have been cue cards.  Your "inbox" was your locker with a note stuck in the vents. 


I'm glad that I didn't grow up in a time when social media was a thing.  We had conversations with each other.  If we didn't like someone, we just didn't like them.  We didn't bash them on a "site" (which was a "place") for everyone to see.  We might pass a letter to them to let them know why we didn't like them but the entire world wouldn't be privy to our conversation. 

Wow.  Life sounds pretty darn primitive back then.  Yeah, I'm okay with that.  Life was much simpler back then.  Being plugged in 24/7 ain't what it's cracked up to be.  Just try to take a nap with your cell phone in the same room.  Impossible.

Don't Do That. It Won't Change Anything!!-150,157

Don't Do That.  It Won't Change Anything!!

Okay, so we all should know that yelling at the weatherman won't change the weather.  If you don't like heat, cold, rain or snow, you have no place to go on Earth and there is nobody on the planet that can change it.  It's almost like the old saying goes...Don't shoot the messenger!  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.


Speaking of shooting the messenger, sometimes being the messenger can get you into trouble.  "Your child did this to my child."  "Your husband is cheating on you."  "You know that she talks about you behind your back, right?"  See what I mean?  You may be the one who gets shot instead of the child, the husband or the backstabbing friend.  Someone might come back to you with "Well, what did your child do to my child to make my child do that to your child?" or "How do you know that my husband is cheating on me?  Did you see it with your own two eyes?" or "Have you heard that friend talk about me?  What did you say when she said that about me?  Did you stick up for me?  What did she say then?"  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.


So, the teenager that is working the drive thru didn't give you your sandwich without pickles.  What do you do?  Do you go inside and berate him or her for putting pickles on your hamburger?  Do you drive back around in the drive thru line and make the teen give you another burger without pickles?  Do you ask for the manager?  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.


Your Facebook friend who you haven't seen in over 25 years posts something about politics that you don't agree with.  What do you do?  Do you "unfriend" that person?  Do you start an argument with that person on their Facebook page?  Do you state your opinion and try to lead this idiot over to your way of thinking because, clearly, they are uninformed or uneducated about what they are saying?  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.


What about if you hear that someone, who you think is a good friend, has been talking about you behind your back?  Do you confront them with what you have heard?  Do you rat out your friend who told you this information?  Do you totally ignore this person the next time that you see them?  Do you start talking about them all over town?  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.


The older I get, the more I think about this.  I think back to when I was young and I remember being short tempered and quick to react to a situation.  I have learned to sleep on it for one night.  If it still bothers me in the morning, maybe I should consider doing something.  99 times out of 100, I don't lose any sleep over things that don't matter in my life and with every new day, I have a choice to be happy or to be miserable.  I can choose to live in the past or live for the future, without forgetting to live today.  In the grand scheme of life, does it really matter if I had pickle juice on my hamburger bun?  Does it matter what other people's children do?  Does it matter what someone else thinks of me?  No.  If my husband ever dared to cheat on me, that would be his choice and he would have to live with the consequences just as I would have to live with the consequences of an affair that I dared to have.  The weatherman isn't in charge of the weather and if my Facebook friend has a differing opinion than I do regarding politics, I just keep scrolling.  Is it really worth losing a friend over an opinion?  Don't do that.  It won't change anything.