A Sound Sleep Expounding June 19th 2019

Under the spreading chestnut tree, the town’s smithy doth ply his trade…. Blacksmith making horseshoes is the theme of that poem and seems our permanent substitute teacher, Mavis Something, would quote it from memory – all about the black smith.

Well, I’ve decided, after much thought… to become a ‘wordsmith’…. I will invoice most of you soon and my rates may be overwhelming but there are great rates on second mortgages now.

I do love/like/cherish words.  And I collect old sayings.  For instance, a friend asked me about ‘sound sleep’ and for me to expound upon the term.

I know my friend to be a University Administrator and expounding made me laugh more than the ‘sound sleep’. 

As my Granddad would say, “I don’t snore.  I stayed awake all night and not once did I snore.”

In the early morning with my bowl of ‘oats’ (oatmeal… but he told me it was the same oats I fed the horse, Candy, and he kept in the grain bin)… anyway, sleepily eating my oats, Granddad would solemnly ask, “Larry, did you slumber in your bed last night?”  I was four years old and declared, “No, Granddad, I didn’t…I tee tee’d off the side porch but not in my bed!”

He would ask all scared-like, “Larry!  Get those garments!”… “Where, Where, Granddad?”, me screaming…. “Get those GARMENTS”…. I was twenty-four. 

Figuring out phrases is a slippery slope; it’s like changing horses midstream; a double-edge sword; like the day of reckoning; it’s either ‘hem’, ‘gee’, or ‘haw’; it’s like sliding naked (nekkid) down a giant razor blade into a pool of rubbing alcohol; it’s like walking on egg shells; bittersweet; wolf in sheep’s clothing and a fox in the henhouse world.

So many things said rather than facts of certainty.  Things are patchy, iffy, pros vs. cons, damned if you do; damned if you don’t; but don’t throw the baby out with the dish and/or bath water (either way, the image is frightening); can’t see the forest for the trees or can’t see the trees for the forest (I hear this both ways); I could care less and I couldn’t care less.

There are perplexing terms and some oxymoronic phrases. 

Our world is weird that to get all electronic devices to work?  Unplug them from electricity outlet for 5 minutes and then plug them back in… I’m mechanical to that point and back. 

Down time is meant to make you cheer UP!

Sliding on ice, turn into the sliding side… WTH? 

Land rich, dirt poor; that boy couldn’t grow mud; he’s pretty ugly; Fat Person, “Well, I can lose weight but you’ll always be ugly” (proved her wrong with some plastic surgery and laser center assistance).  She still fat.

Things are neither here nor there… Hell’s Bell’s!

Oh, I’m fair to Midland… What???

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone; for the world needs mirth with everyone’s sorrows. 

A Hug kind of cures any problem you might have with a friend.

Double crossed/Single crossed?

One of my favorites… to an angry man or woman, “What’s got your tits all twisted” or… this is country but, “You act like you only sucked the hind teat.”  I laugh.

But, the ones I like best, thanks to Dr. Dorys Gover of Oregon, the sayings that have been passed down by folks… folklore, that is… plain speak which might change a bit with the times but more likely to remain the same forever.  That’s what attracts me.  I like things that will be here in perpetuity…. Forever…. Long past we are gone…. Like scholarship endowments …. And folklore-type sayings.

A sound sleep? With a dream machine, my two fans, and a/c going, I can sleep.  I travel with a fan… not a fan like a stalker… or a fan like a Geisha, but electric fan … oscillating is the best and so is the word, ‘oscillating’.  Having a three night power outage?  What I missed the most?  My sleep noise.  I have ‘lots of sounds’ when I sleep.

And, since we are talking about bottle openers/can openers, why do I call a bottle opener… “church key” … as in, “Dang, these aren’t twist off beer bottles!  Anyway got a ‘church key’?”

Other things to expound upon:

*A little bird told me.  If ever called to testify about any damn thing, my repetitive answer to everything is:  A little bird told me.  A little bird told me. 

*You know, Daniel didn’t REALLY want to go into that den of lions… no way, Jose!  He did not go in there like we picture in Sunday School artists’ renditions… He was scracting like a big cat NOT to be put in there… doing that running in place thing when the big soldiers lifted him off the ground.  No one wants trouble… hungry + angry lions … hangry lions … are sound trouble …

*Hell’s Bell’s.  I say this often.  My ‘go to’ cuss word is still, “Booger!”, which was my nickname until we moved towns and I told Dad I wasn’t moving unless he promised to change my nickname.  A friend asked Dad, Why do you call Larry, ‘booger’?  Dad replied, “Because he does things he shouldn’t.”   Mmmm.  Hell’s Bell’s!

*Laughing stock.  I’ve seen livestock and chicken broth stock… but I have never seen a laughing stock.  Perhaps I am the laughing stock of our time and, for that, I thank you. 

*Ill-gotten gains.  No one says, healthy-gotten gains.  I want to start that as the replacement for “fetch”, “literally”, “actually”, “at the end of the day” and “having said that”.

So, having said ‘that’… so sorry for the length … no that’s not right … thanks for letting me get all this off my chest… I think I will sleep soundly … a nice sound sleep.