One random memory relating to you from years ago?

Post high school, I worked as an Activities Aid in the long term care ward of the local hospital in upstate NY. One of our favorite patients was a retired farmer, originally from Russia…. Everyone called him Papa b/c he was a gentle teddy bear of a man and very sweet.

Unbeknownst to me, Papa — keeping the traditions of his heritage and homeland where the parents arranged their children’s marriages— was looking for a bride for his youngest son.

He asked me to come by his room to meet his wife and son; as visiting the patients in their rooms was part of my job, I said, “Sure, Papa” and went in on the appointed day.

Here’s what I found: papa in his wheelchair beaming proudly… son— standing very stiff and formal by the window…. wife, complete with babushka, coming toward me, saying, “We’re going to love having you for our daughter in law!”

I fled

One of the nurses (from Germany or Poland) knew a little Russian and the next day she gently explained to Papa why I couldn’t marry his son

it all had a happy ending. His wife went back to the old country and found a suitable girl. The last time I visited Papa, he proudly showed me a pic of his infant grandson 😀
 
1986, Queenstown Tasmania. I was hiking in the hills without a shirt.
Tasmania never used to have very hot summers and this day I think the temperature was around 28 degrees C, slightly over 80 F.
Unbeknownst to me I had become sunburnt predominately on my back and shoulders.
After I arrived home I sat in my velvet covered lounge chair and fell asleep.
Upon wakening and attempting to get up from the chair I found that I was stuck to the chair.
Attempting to remove myself from the chair was extremely painful and it took me more than 20 minutes to unstick my back from said chair.
The sunburn had blistered and the weeping blisters saw me firmly stuck.
I was in great pain for days and was unable to work because I could not even raise my arms, what with the pain of the now drying skin.
Learnt a lesson that day and I am never in the sun uncovered.
 

horseless carriage said:
Science was never my strong subject, but in physics I do know that tall buildings can attract the wind causing a vortex. How I know is because my wife explained it much more clearly than my old crusty physics teacher.

She was shopping in Central London, this was back in the late sixties, when the mini skirt was all the rage. But on this day my wife was wearing a flared skirt that was perfect fodder for a naughty wind. As the wind hit the side of the building, a down draught occurred, causing a vortex that swirled as it hit the ground. That lifted her skirt to waist height. She told me that a sweet old lady tried desperately to help, but behind her, all her underwear and stockings were on show. It was then that she heard an almighty bang. Looking round she realised that a driver had been more interested in her underwear than he had the road ahead and had run straight into the stationary car in front. My wife told me that she ran into the adjacent shop in case she got blamed.

My sympathies were for that motorist, I know that you shouldn't be looking, but my missus does have beautiful legs. All that dancing we do.
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Beautifully said, and very funny! :p
 
I was speaking to a friend I had lived on the same street until 3yrs ago. She brought back a memory of something that happened to me when I was in my 30's. I was walking up my street and as I passed by a neighbors house she came out and asked me if I wanted to say Hello to her husband Charlie who had just gotten out of the hospital. I said sure and when I went in he was in a bed in the living room and he was naked. She then told me I could sit on the bed and talk to him. I said, "Gee I'm sorry I am getting company and If I don' answer my door they might leave."Then I ran out of her house.
 
I was at work long ago and a woman I didn't know and had never met (a fellow employee) called from 6 floors above with instructions regarding securities we were to receive and pay for in New York. Her instructions were missing a required piece of information. I asked for it and she said she "didn't know". I replied, "When you know, call me back", and hung up the phone. Rather rude, I admit. Anyhow, two years later I married her.
 
Ruth n Jersey said:
I remember cutting high school with my girl friend to go to New York city which was only about an hour away to see all the free live daytime shows.
One particular time we had front row seats and they scanned the audience with the camera. We were waving like crazy. The next day a teacher we had asked us if we enjoyed the show. Apparently they had the show on in the teachers lounge and they saw us as plain as day.
We were mortified but he was a good sport and didn't rat us out.
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Wow aren't you cool using cool words to point out just how cool you were then
 
When I was growing up and living in the City all the houses had somehing called a vestibule. You would open your front door and there was a small room and another door and when you opened that door you were in the living room. As a teenager, if you went over to a friend's house and a brother answered the door he would feel you up. As I got older and married I thought those days were over until I went to a friend that lived on the same street. I would go and visit when her husband went Bowling. If I happened to get there before he left he would open the door and was all over you. After he did that to me I would always call before going over to make sure he wasn't home. I never told his wife. In later years he left his wife and kids for a woman he met online and moved far away.
 
Sassycakes said:
When I was growing up and living in the City all the houses had somehing called a vestibule. You would open your front door and there was a small room and another door and when you opened that door you were in the living room. As a teenager, if you went over to a friend's house and a brother answered the door he would feel you up. As I got older and married I thought those days were over until I went to a friend that lived on the same street. I would go and visit when her husband went Bowling. If I happened to get there before he left he would open the door and was all over you. After he did that to me I would always call before going over to make sure he wasn't home. I never told his wife. In later years he left his wife and kids for a woman he met online and moved far away.
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Seems to me he deserved a good sock in the mouth.
 
One memory that sticks with me refers to tree climbing. I was visiting my cousins in Midland Park and when we went out to play, my aunt, knowing I never met a tree I didn't want to climb admonished me to stay away from this activity. Well of course I ignored this and proceeded to climb the first tree I came to. It was rather fragile looking but I loved a challenge. I promptly fell out of it and I was rushed 2 blocks up the street to my uncle Joe's office. He was a country doctor and he took one look at me and held his head. Not again was his out burst. Fortunately, it was only a sprain and healed quickly. It wasn't until a few years later when I was very high in a much larger tree that a branch broke that I stepped on and I came hurtling down. Luckily, a couple of branches before hitting the ground were able to support me. That ended my tree climbing days once and for all.
 
Liza1948 said:
Gee, let me think. All of my teachers in high school trying to dissuade me from going to college in the mid 60s. Being the only female in the entire economics and accounting departments at University of Iowa. The assumption that because I'm a woman I would only be fit for secretarial work. The assumption I'd just give up on leaving town and instead marry one of the local farmer's ignorant sons so I can raise a gaggle of corn shucking morons. Where I grew up, women were expected to marry by 21, preferably to the son of the local preacher, blacks were expected to not be seen at night, and everyone pretended it was the height of human development. Right. At least my parents were progressive for their time which really meant do whatever you want just don't make a big deal about it with the neighbors (for the first five years after I left they told people I was studing theology in order to join the church). Yeah, great times. I didn't know what an orgasm was until I was 21, not exactly the greatest sexual education for girls at the time.
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Sounds like a slight variation on my life. My father was an artist/display man and had taught me how to use a draft board and T-square so I could draw my house plans for fun, so I thought I would enjoy being a draftsman. The local business college turned me down saying they only allowed men in those classes, but I could take shorthand and typing. I did marry at 19, not a preacher, but a handsome young man who looked just like Barry Gibb and had a college degree. Unfortunately he was too lazy to actually want to use that degree. I was 27 and in a women's "conscious raising" group before I found out what an orgasm was. Yes he was really lazy.

horseless carriage said:
She was shopping in Central London, this was back in the late sixties, when the mini skirt was all the rage. But on this day my wife was wearing a flared skirt that was perfect fodder for a naughty wind.
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Those first mini-skirts were a traffic hazard. The first time I wore one down High Street in Columbus a young guy ran into a parking sign. We all laughed at him.
 
When I was in 1st grade (I must have been 5 or 6 yrs old), there was one big bully (Jimmy) who picked on everyone - shoving, hitting, taunting - everything. I also had a mean teacher - a woman around 300 lbs who constantly yelled at her students. She picked on me often. I was very nearsighted (not diagnosed yet) & when I couldn't read the blackboard, even after she put me in the front row, she would accuse me of not wanting to do my work & called me lazy. I was also hearing impaired & she would accuse me of "Pretending not to hear her to get out of doing my assignments." Most of the kids hated her as much as I did.
One day, I told the other kids: "I've got a plan cooked up for both of them; just watch during art class."

The teacher handed out clumps of clay & told us to "Make Something." I did. I rolled up some clay into a round ball. While the teacher was writing on the blackboard, I stood up & threw the piece of clay at her. I must have thrown it really hard because it hit her in the butt with a really loud "Smack."
She let out a loud scream & yelled, "WHO DID THAT?"
I yelled, "JIMMY DID IT. I SAW HIM." (Jimmy sat in front of me, so he couldn't see that I did it)
She grabbed him by the arm, lifted him out of his chair & shoved him into a corner, while he was crying & saying, "I didn't do it."
Jimmy must have learned something about being bullied that day; he stopped bullying other kids.
In 6 years of elementary school, that was my favorite day.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
 
win231 said:
When I was in 1st grade (I must have been 5 or 6 yrs old), there was one big bully (Jimmy) who picked on everyone - shoving, hitting, taunting - everything. I also had a mean teacher - a woman around 300 lbs who constantly yelled at her students. She picked on me often. I was very nearsighted (not diagnosed yet) & when I couldn't read the blackboard, even after she put me in the front row, she would accuse me of not wanting to do my work & called me lazy. I was also hearing impaired & she would accuse me of "Pretending not to hear her to get out of doing my assignments." Most of the kids hated her as much as I did.
One day, I told the other kids: "I've got a plan cooked up for both of them; just watch during art class."

The teacher handed out clumps of clay & told us to "Make Something." I did. I rolled up some clay into a round ball. While the teacher was writing on the blackboard, I stood up & threw the piece of clay at her. I must have thrown it really hard because it hit her in the butt with a really loud "Smack."
She let out a loud scream & yelled, "WHO DID THAT?"
I yelled, "JIMMY DID IT. I SAW HIM." (Jimmy sat in front of me, so he couldn't see that I did it)
She grabbed him by the arm, lifted him out of his chair & shoved him into a corner, while he was crying & saying, "I didn't do it."
Jimmy must have learned something about being bullied that day; he stopped bullying other kids.
In 6 years of elementary school, that was my favorite day.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
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Well said story! For someone nearsighted, though, you aimed pretty well! :ROFLMAO:
 
I vaguely remember when I was about four years old I snuck out of my Grandmas house, slipped through a hole in the fence, crossed a four lane highway and recrossed it to get back home. There were deep ditches on both sides and I was covered in mud when I returned. I also remember had to go get the switch that was used across my backside. :oops:
 
win231 said:
Some people get a sense of power & control by hitting someone who can't hit back.
Some parents (like my mom) learned the hard way that their kids won't always be that small. Sometimes, it ends tragically for both - with the parent dead & the son charged.
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Unfortunately that's true. and despite all the so-called progress, it won't change until parents and others start to realize children are human beings.
 
I was not complaining about being switched at all. I learned more from that switch and others like it than all the verbal reprimands I ever heard. For those who may not understand the process. Picking the switch was designed to give me time to think about what I did and the consequences. The switching itself was mild in comparison. My parents never did anything to intentionally hurt me physically or mentally. They were good and kind people that taught me well. Now what I did with that good guidance is a whole different story but that's on me not on them.
 
Thank you, Oldpop. My mother was a switching, spanking little 4'11"Tasmanian Devil (yes we called her that behind her back, but there was never any cruelty behind it at all, she just thought that was how you taught kids things. If my brothers and I had been afraid of her we wouldn't have been in trouble so much.

I was not a spanker myself, but a long winded explainer. My son once, sighed and said, "I've heard it before." I think he would have preferred a switching.
 
Couple more memories to add, both related to the Caribbean, that might be worthy of a smile (-8 ...

When I graduated from Navy OCS I got orders to a ship -- most of us in my unit of about 30 guys were also headed for a ship, but one (possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer) was not a happy camper! He was VERY distressed to announce that he had orders to some place called "Bar Buh Dose" -- usually spelled Barbados. I think there were 29 guys who would have gladly traded with him. (-8

Later in life I was in a Bank unit that among other things accepted deposits in a branch on Grand Cayman island. One day a gentleman called to inquire if a trip to Grand Cayman to visit his money would be tax deductible. We suggested he speak to a CPA. (-8
 


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