T P O

T   P   O
The Patient Ox (aka Hénock Gugsa)

G r e e t i n g s !

** TPO **
A personal blog with diverse topicality and multiple interests!


On the menu ... politics, music, poetry, and other good stuff.
There is humor, but there is blunt seriousness here as well!


Parfois, on parle français ici aussi. Je suis un francophile .... Bienvenue à tous!

* Your comments and evaluations are appreciated ! *

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Mother's Little Sayings - by Good Little Girl



Mother's Little Sayings
From: "Good Little Girl", 
The Bulletin Board, 
Saint Paul Pioneer Press (03/21/2015)
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Good Little Girl:
"My mother used to say:
- Hell's bells! when she made a mistake.
- Landagoshen! as an exclamation. (I thought she was saying Atlantic Ocean, but it probably was Land of Goshen.)
- If all's well about anything in the future: 'If all's well, Daddy will take us for a ride tonight.' I thought she was talking about the season, fall.
- What you don't see when you haven't got a gun! (No violence intended.) One time, my 2-year-old sneaked out of the house with nothing on but his big sister's saddle shoes. Mother said: 'What you don't see when you haven't got a gun!'
- His nibs when she referred to my favorite uncle.
- That takes the cake for anything out of the ordinary.
- Pride cometh before the fall. She'd say this so often; it's etched in my mind!
- God love him whenever she held a child.
- That beats all! for anything exceptional.
- It was only a love-tap anytime your brother or sister hit you.
- Don't make that face! God will freeze it and you'll look like that forever.
- Eat your crusts, or Mr. Hoover will get you.
- Eat your crusts if you want curly hair.
- If you don't sit down to eat, all the food will go to your feet.
- You look like a Fiji-Islander when we didn't comb our hair.
-Don't get up on your high horse if we became indignant over anything.
- A long drink of water to describe a really tall person.
- If asked where she or her relatives were from, the answer was always County Mayo, God help us.
- We'd say Hocus pocus dominocus without realizing it was probably making fun of the most sacred Latin liturgy."
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Good Little Girl, days later:
"When I sent you the list of expressions the other day, how could I have forgotten my mother's most famous one:
- Offer it up. We'd skin our knees on the stony tar in the alley and come in covered with blood. She'd say: 'Offer it up.' We'd have to walk eight blocks to school in 10-below-zero weather. She'd say: 'Offer it up.' We almost died from measles. She said: 'Offer it up.'

Somehow it worked. I think the saving factor was that, when things were hard for her, she'd always say: 'I'm going to offer it up.' It wasn't just something she imposed upon us.
All the things that were difficult for us, we believed could help someone else: the poor souls in Purgatory, the Pagan Babies, the sick and the dying. I think we were more aware of the interdependence of humanity than kids are today. We honestly felt that our being brave and good and kind and long-suffering could affect complete strangers if we offered it up.
......................................
 Of course, I still do ...."

  

Thursday, May 21, 2015