Flower Power and Going Viral
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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

My First Seven Celebrities

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Investing In Futures
While
Showing Presence In The Present
And
--Hopefully--
Learning From The Past


Listen to songs such as Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler On The Roof, The Men In My Little Girl's Life by Mike Douglas, Don't Blink by Kenny Chesney, As Tears Go By by The Rolling Stones, The Class Of 57 by The Statler Brothers, and Puff The Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, and Mary, and you'll realize how quickly time goes by.

Babyhood, Childhood, and Youth make up a relatively short season in a person's life, yet so much is happening during these first eighteen years when it comes to shaping an individual.

I would like to believe that most kids grew up in an environment that was relatively safe and loving--and where life's disappointments weren't of the type to leave behind deep scars.  I know that I did and that a great number of my friends did, too.

However, I know that there are children growing up who end up--through no fault of their own--either having little or no truly happy childhood memories or, at least, going through some extremely-challenging times (a gross understatement) that should NEVER have been a part of their growing up years.

One such example of this is the life of Roger Dean Kiser.

When you read his books and articles, you will learn of somebody who was orphaned-by-desertion when he was only three or four years old.

In time, he would become a ward of the state of Florida.

This would come to mean that--after time spent in an orphanage where he and others were abused physically, sexually, verbally, and emotionally--he would then be passed on to the now closed and infamous reform school near the community of Marianna where his treatment there would practically make the orphanage from whence he came seem like a place of TLC in comparison.

When Roger got into his middle years, it began to dawn on him that how he had been treated hadn't been his fault.  He wasn't the "bad" character in this scenario--even though he had come to believe this on some levels for most of his life.

That was when he began to write about his troubled youth and childhood.

The more he wrote, the more connections he made that began to confirm for him that he was far from being alone.

These days, Roger has the tenacity of a snapping turtle--in fact, he has even MORE tenacity than a snapping turtle, because it's been said that, if a snapping turtle bites you, he won't let go until he hears it thunder, while Roger, on the other hand, keeps the bite going on even during the strongest thunderstorms.

Roger wants the state of Florida to come clean about the bodies of boys in unmarked graves that have already been discovered (where chances are as close to 100% as you can get while still allowing for error that there are plenty more bodies covered up here and there on the grounds of the old reform school).

If the state of Florida thinks that they can manage to discourage Roger from his mission, then, they have another think coming.  Even if Roger becomes too worn out to stay as active as he his now, the quest for accountability will still continue, because there are plenty of other people who still have the energy to bite into this situation and lock their jaws around it.

There are many of us who are doing our part to make sure that those first 18 years of a person's life will be years looked back on later in a fond way, and there are many ways to make this happen.

Go here to my blog called IYN-The Dream Continues and be sure that you create easy instructions for navigating back to it.

Now that I'm about to go viral and enlarge my reading audience--not to mention having my Cyberspace more streamlined to make it easier for me to navigate to all of the places where I want to be with ease--I'm going to start making frequent blog-entries there that will continue where I'm leaving off in this discussion...

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Her CB Handle Was Blabbermouth Way BackThen


Let's go back in time to the 1970s when many people were enjoying a certain ancestor of The Internet.

Here in 21st Cyberspace, we have our lingo such as ROTFL, brb, TY, etc.

Do you remember way back then when words/phrases such as Smokeys, Bears, 10-4, Back Door, Blow Your Doors Off, etc. were part of the communication scene?

Remember when people had handles such as Bluebird, Krazy Kat, Lulubucket, Candy, etc.--well, actually, they still do.  What's changed is the form of communication.

Today, it's The Internet.  Back then, it was CB radios.

Remember those great songs inspired by this time that sometimes seems like only yesterday but is, actually, something from over three decades ago?

At the end of this, I'm going to put a little area in place to take you back in time when you click on the hyperlinks leading to music videos on YouTube.  Some of you reading this weren't even born then--and even your parents who might seem so old to you now were just little kids (or not even born, either)--but I bet that my fellow prehistoric peers will remember at least one or two of these songs.

My friends, Diana & Howard, were part of the CB craze.  In fact, Diana was part of it before it even became widely popular, as her mom and dad were part of it when it was a relatively smaller percentage of the human race who had discovered it and found it to be a fun hobby.

But, during this time, they had a CB radio in their car for awhile so that they could talk to people when they were out-and-about.

They even gave their two youngest (Julie & Michelle) handles.

Julie (a preschooler) had the handle of Droopy Drawers because it seemed as if her pants were always trying to slide off of her.

Michelle (a baby) was given the handle of Blabbermouth, because she could really chatter away with her baby talk.

I remember how, one time, she started talking to me using just one "word"--"Ba"

I have no idea what she was saying, but she was just going "Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba..." while looking at me with those big, dark-brown, long-lashed eyes of hers in such a serious way.  She wasn't talking in a monotone, either.  Each "Ba" sounded different as if it were a single-syllable word or parts of a multi-syllable word.

It was as if she were lecturing me about something but her message--instead of containing different words--was all made up of the "Ba" sound.  I think you would have had to have been there to fully appreciate it, but I hope I'm getting across at least a fairly good description of what she sounded like.

And she could go pretty fast, too!

When she started actually saying words, she could also go pretty fast.

I remember that my mom once predicted (just in fun) that Michelle would grow up to be an auctioneer.

Would you believe that this is one of the many hats that Michelle (now, at this particular time, 35 years old) now wears!?!

That's right!  She has her own store on eBay and always seems to be having auctions.

She seems to be doing a great job just on her own, but, as her doting godmother, I, naturally, want to help her to get even more exposure, so I'm having her to go viral right along with me.

I hope you'll click here to go check out her eBay store and see what kinds of auctions she's staging.

Now!  Having told you all of that, it's time for me to treat you to some of those classic CB songs...

CLICK HERE!  CLICK HERE! CLICK HERE! CLICK HERE!  CLICK HERE!  

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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A Wonderful And Inspiring Video I Found On Facebook!


 I found the most wonderful video on Facebook and would like to share it with you.

The caption given to this video was:

I HOPE ONE DAY THE WORLD WILL BE like THis :)

and I believe that, when you watch it, you'll agree with those sentiments.

Although it isn't the movie called Pay It Forward, it's about paying random acts of kindness forward using random acts of kindness of your own.

It doesn't have to be some big thing, as you'd be surprised how the little things that you're able to do so easily end up making wonderful differences in the lives of others!

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Two Storytelling Gentlemen
From
Anderson, Indiana



I would like to introduce you to a couple of Anderson, Indiana's native sons who have a lot to say via the written word:

Don McAllister

and

Michael Alan "Map" Pierce

Don--who is also a columnist for The Herald Bulletin writing about the lives of our Veterans, their families, and friends--has three wonderful books out already with (I would predict) even more to follow.  The stories he tells have a warm, down home flavor to them--a kind of literary comfort food.

If I were a doctor, I would prescribe all three to you--after all, I've already followed the same prescription myself.

Map is a modern day psalmist whose most comfortable way of praying is to write his thoughts down in poetic form.

No longer a resident of Anderson (living in Nashville, Tennessee), he's still such a well-loved part of our community that he has even been known to get surprised with free food from his favorite restaurant, Art's Pizza, when he's back in the area.

Proceeds from the sale of his book, Praying Poems (a combination of several of his poems with a little prose thrown in for good measure), go to help with the continuation of halfway houses for people who (like himself) have served time in prison (in his case, for bad decisions that should have never been called crimes) and are trying to find their way back into the community again.

Shipping and handling is included in the cost of his book, which you can order from his website (reached by clicking on his name) for $11; using a check or money order with snailmail to his address (which will be given at the bottom of this information) for $10; or seeing him in person in some place such as his monthly open-mic poetry reading called  Poetry in the Brew (the brew being coffee instead of alcohol) for $6.

Now, here's his snailmail address (Be sure to write Praying Poems somewhere on the outside of the envelope as well as indicating in your message how you'd like for it to be personally autographed!):

Michael Pierce
912 Spain Avenue
Nashville
Tennessee
37216

Happy Reading!!!

 
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Monday, April 15, 2013

We Are Women!
Hear Us Roar!



Have you ever heard of Valerie Jean Routhieaux ?

She's a very talented writer of historical fiction that deals with the lives of strong-spirited women who lived in times when women were still kept on significantly-short leashes by men.  Her first novel is called Scarred, which I'm now reading.

Scarred is her first (though, according to her, not her last by any stretch of the imagination!) novel for adults, and I've found it to be a real page-turner.  I'm anxious to read her future writings in this genre as well. She told me about the main character of the novel on which she's working now that about made my eyes pop right out of my head.  I'm not going to give away what that is at this time, but I will say that it was something pretty neat--a decision she made before she even met me, which made it even more uncanny!

Okay!  My lips are sealed!  You're just going to have to buy this book and be on the look-out for her next one--and, of course, all books following that one, as I have the feeling that you'll also be hooked when you read Scarred.

This is the description of it over at Amazon:

Jo-Ann Carter is a disillusioned young woman who decides the best thing for her is to leave. Leave school, where she has been for seven years since the tragic death of her parents, which left her an orphan at the age of ten. Leave England and a society that forgot about her. Leave everything she knows, except her best friend, who insists on going with her-plunging them both into the dangers found on the high seas, with pirate battles, slave markets, and the hardships found in Colonial America. Quentin Alexander, Earl of Thurgarton, learns he is Jo-Ann's guardian through a message from the headmistress of the school she attended. With permission from the Crown, he determines to bring Jo-Ann and her companion back to England. Both Jo-Ann and Quentin are determined on seeing their objectives met: she to stay in the Colonies, and he to take her back. Who will win the battle of wills, and at what cost?

And, on this note, I'll sign off...

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Critters Are Blessed
To Have Kimberly Lovell
In Their Corner!


Kimberly Lovell is a very talented writer/poet/visual artist, as can be seen from samples of her work you can reach by going HERE. 

She has also used her talents in other more serious ways than creating the gently-beautiful and delightfully-whimsical drawings for which she's best known.

She has a dream of raising enough money with her God-given talents to make a very beautiful dream of hers come true--that being to make it affordable for ALL humans to care for their pets' medical needs.

Click on this sentence to go to the beautiful website she's designed for the purpose of sharing more details of her dream. 

Thanks, in advance, for doing what you can yourself and/or sharing this with others in order to make more and more people aware of her dream!!!

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!!!Boy Howdy!!!
Check Out This
Hamburger High
Jumbo Tenderloin
!!!!!!!



Did you know that Anderson, Indiana is the location of the very first Hamburger High?

However, its owner, Tim Basey, wouldn't mind at all if this location weren't its last and only location--which means that you can go here to find out how to be licensed to own your very own Hamburger High!

Is that anything-BUT-an-itty-bitty breaded tenderloin sandwich making you drool all over your keyboard?

If so, I think it's about time that you checked out THE MENU to see how it fits into the scheme of things!

You will find this jumbo tenderloin among "The Junior" choices , which all cost eight dollars.

For lighter appetites with a love for breaded tenderloin, there's a smaller version offered among "The Sophomore" choices that all cost seven dollars.

Besides your main course, you'll find these dollar amounts also cover unlimited fries, 1 side of your choosing (You can get extra ones ala carte for a reasonable price), and one 32 oz. cup of your choice of beverage. 

That includes the tax, too.

Hamburger High has intentionally made life less complicated by charging even dollar amounts for its food.

Find out more about this unique, school-themed eatery by starting out on the homepage of its website.

Hamburger High has "The Freshman", "The Sophomore", "The Junior", "The Senior", and even have a nice, healthy "Teacher's Pet Menu".

But how about "The School Bully"!?!  Surely, it doesn't have one of those!

Oops!  I'm afraid it does..................

But don't worry, because you'll like this kind of school bully if you have an extra big appetite (or one or more people with whom to share it) and are willing to pay $15 for the thrill of taking it down.

May the day come soon when ALL school bullies are the type that are delicious!!!

Hamburger High
21 West 38th Street
Anderson
Indiana
USA
 




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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Coming VERY Soon
--As In The Next Few Hours--
Lotsa Presentations!!!

STAY
TUNED
!!!
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