Monthly Archives: March 2019

Gone With the Wind

 

No, this isn’t about a problem with gas attacks or a theme on Dorothy’s trip to the land of Oz.   I am writing today about the greatest movie of all time that was ever created and put on screen.  I am writing about that wonderful movie that came from Margaret Mitchell’s wonderful book, “Gone With the Wind.”   Did I say it was wonderful, yet?  Well, it is.

I grew up watching Gone With the Wind.  I’m not sure where I saw it for the very first time. One would think I’d remember it since I am so in love with the movie.  I may have seen it at the theater with my mother or I may have watched it for the first time on the television.  No matter, I fell in love with it and I really fell in love with the actor who played Rhett Butler, Clark Gable.  Yikes, was he ever handsome. When Scarlett first sees him at the bottom of that huge staircase at the Wilkes’ picnic, I swoon every time.   And the best kissing scene in any movie, ever, was when Rhett picked up Scarlett out of the wagon and kissed her before he went off to fight the losing war with the southern soldiers.   Scarlett, you idiot. That man loved you so much and that was some kiss.  And you rebuffed him!

This past weekend Gone With the Wind was having a special 80th year making of the movie celebration showing at a local movie theater. Well, not so local. We had to drive an hour to get there.  We had purchased our tickets weeks ago and I was so looking forward to seeing it again.  Not like I haven’t watched it once or twice every year since I’ve been a girl.  But it was like the very first time for me. I actually got a lump in my throat when the music started and the opening credits came on.  It was like time stood still and I was once again that romance loving, dream believing young girl sitting in a darkened theater watching her very favorite movie of all time for the very first time.

And I swooned when Scarlett saw Rhett at the bottom of the stairs and asked, who is that man?  Little did she know how involved she was going to get with him!  Eating popcorn and Milk duds, sitting beside my favorite date, I was in heaven.    I forgot the movie was four hours long with an intermission, but it flew by. When it was over, I could have sat through it again. Did I say I loved Gone With the Wind, yet?

So today I got out some of my Gone With the Wind books I have purchased or been given through the years.  A few years back my kids gave me a CD of the movie which means I can watch it anytime I want, but I still watch it when it’s on tv. I guess it’s knowing I’m watching it with others that makes it special.   Anyway, when I was about fourteen, the book Gone With the Wind was celebrating its 25th anniversary of being published and for Christmas that year, I got the celebratory issue.     I read it all and loved it, too.   There was a lot in the book that was not in the movie. Scarlett had more children than just Bonnie Blue.

The book came in this.

This was the front of the book.

A booklet about the book.

Through the years I have purchased other books about Gone With the Wind.

A book about the making of the movie.

A book chock full of scenes from the movie including back stage scenes.

At an auction years ago I bought this book that was published in l936 about the time the first book came out, but this is not a first edition I don’t believe.

And then at a flea market near our home I found this book in a pile of junk. And what a find it was for me.

A very interesting book about Margaret Mitchell’s life and how she came to write, “Gone With the Wind.”  Years after the movie became so successful,  she was hit by a speeding taxicab and died.  A sad ending to a very interesting life and an illustrious career.  I will always be grateful to Miss Mitchell for writing one of the best books ever written, in my opinion.  It should be required reading.  In today’s attempt to get rid of all our history because it offends some people, we need to know our history more than ever before and to learn it from someone who was there or knew someone who was there or at least knows the real story.  Her story is full of the history of both the post and pre-Civil War South. She learned it at the knee of old Civil War soldiers when she was a girl.  We should never forget.   One of the books had a newspaper article slipped into its pages about Margaret Mitchell’s brother and how he kept her story alive and kept up with the Gone With the Wind profits from sales of books, movie tickets, CDs, etc.  Profits were still in the millions at the time of the newspaper article.  She certainly left a legacy for her family. She had no children.

I don’t know if I will be alive when the 100th year of the Gone With the Wind Movie is shown, but I hope there will still be people interested and that it will never be forgotten.

Here’s to the best movie ever made(in my opinion) Gone With the Wind.  Bye.

 

 

 

A Family of Bloggers

I got into this blogging thing late. While many had already been blogging for years and made friends and grew businesses from their blogs,  I was still learning about the computer and Facebook and E-mail and didn’t know there was a whole other group of people out there who wrote about their lives, their passions, their families, etc.  One of the first blogs I ever read was Pioneer Woman and you all know what happened with her and all her fame and fortune.

The first time I read Ree’s blog I laughed so hard and sent her a comment and she answered me back and I was hooked.  I have kept up with her family and watched her children grow from little kids to almost adults.  I watched her grow her business and become a household name and get a tv cooking show.   I had no such ambitions.  The next blog I got hooked on was Posie Gets Cozy.  It’s a delicious combination of family, knitting, quilting and creating and adoption which took a sad turn at one point and then turned into a wonderful story when the Paulsons adopted a baby girl and I was enraptured by their story.   I have watched their little girl grow and become a school girl.  Alicia’s wonderful way with words makes her blog so sweet to read.  She doesn’t hold back when she is sad, but most often she is a bright, shining star who shows us all the beauty that is in this world.    I discovered Canadian Needle Nana and am astounded at how many quilts she has made and continues to make.  She is a an artist at quilting and inspires me to do better.  And for laughs, I love reading The New Sixty by Arkansas Patti.  A woman with the best sense of humor and she makes you think.   I have laughed so hard at some of her posts. She only writes one every week and I always look forward to Monday when I can read another installment of her very eventful life.  She has done some interesting things in her life and has a humorous take on almost everything.  This week is about things better than sex!  Yes.

I finally began a blog and it was called, I Love My Dogs,” because, well, I love my dogs and still do.  I learned how to post pictures and really enjoyed writing about my life. I considered it a diary for my children who may one day want to know more about their mother.  Then, one day, most of my pictures disappeared from the blog because David had been tinkering with them and lost them all. I was dismayed, to say the least.   Fast forward and I decided to start a new blog. My son paid for my website and I was off and running again with “Snicklefritz.”  In case you don’t already know why I named my blog Snicklefritz, it’s because that is what my daddy always called me.  Snicklefritz means a mischievous child and I was that.

Many blogs I read and loved have gone by the wayside because of family issues or work or the blogger was just tired of keeping a blog up. It does take time to write a blog and if you add pictures that takes even more time so I can understand why some have given up their blogs, but I really miss some of them.  One in particular, Posy, a blogger from England quit because she was having trouble with her computer and never came back.  I loved reading her blog and I have heard she may start one up again and I hope I can find it and read it when she does.

As for me, I just love writing. Doing this blog gives me an outlet for it and there is so many things I want to write about.  I’ve got several stories I have written about when I was growing up that I intend to post on my blog eventually.  I have also written some children’s stories with my grandchildren as the subjects in them that I may post one day.  I enjoy sharing my hobbies, my travels and just my humdrum days. I don’t live an especially exciting life, but it’s my life and I’m content with it.  I don’t think I take exciting too well, anyway.

If you are reading this and have never tried writing a blog because you think your life is not interesting enough, believe me.  Everyone’s life is interesting. I love to read about the every day things.  If there are some especially exciting or wonderful things, that’s nice too, but I  think everyone’s life is a story that needs to be written.  So if you have been holding off writing a blog, now is the time to start. You will find out things about yourself as you write. It’s cathartic in many ways.

Here’s to blogging and all the bloggers who put their lives out there for us to read about.  Bye.

 

Winter Hangs on With Gusto and Seventy Came Too Quickly

Just when we thought Spring might be just around the corner, Winter hit us with another blast of cold air and lots of that white stuff that likes to stick to the ground and on the roads and makes us have to work whenever we want to go anywhere.  It’s really pretty and does make things look a whole lot better outside. The outdoors had begun to have that ugly, muddy, dirty, just before Spring look it gets every year when nothing looks especially pretty unless you like dirt, mud and grey.

This week I’m celebrating my seventieth birthday which kind of astounds me when I think about it. I remember sitting in Home Economics class with some of my girlfriends many years ago, discussing how old we’d be in the year 2000 and most of us would be 50 or 51 and we thought that was so old. Now I’m nineteen years pass 2000 and looking at a whole new decade that I never thought I’d see for at least a few more years, but here I am.  How did I get here so quickly?  If you are reading this and you are in your thirties, forties or younger, just know, one day you will be seventy one day if you are so blessed, and you, too, will wonder where the years have gone. We take youth so for granted, but it really is fleeting so enjoy it while you can.  You will not be young forever. That is not to say you can’t remain young at heart. I still find things pretty miraculous at times. I love nature and baby animals and babies and listening to stories and playing outside in the fresh air. My body doesn’t cooperate like it use to. In fact, my body tells me, “No,” many more times than I like.   I can’t run up steps two at a time anymore.  Sometimes I feel downright shaky on my own two legs. I tire easier.  But that’s okay since when I’m tired I can still sew, quilt, knit and read, all things I love to do.  I’ve knit two pairs of socks in the last weeks which kind of tells you I’ve been a little tired lately.

I still want to get one more puppy and a kitten. I still want to get more baby chicks and raise them to adulthood and gather eggs every day.  I still have a lot of places I’d like to see and people I’d like to visit.  I’d like to walk five miles a day again. There is still a lot of life in this old girl!   So I will celebrate my birthday by eating cake and ice cream and thank the dear Lord I made it this far.  Whatever happens in the future is in His hands, so I’m happy with that.

My very best friend in grade school was a girl whose name is Mary Jean. She and I were born in the same hospital, on the same day and our mothers shared a room while there.  We found each other in first grade and we have been friends ever since.  We grew apart in high school, mainly because our classes were not the same and I was boy crazy and dating and found David, the love of my life in high school, but we re-ignited our friendship after high school through letters we wrote to each other. She married and moved clear across the country and raised three children, one of them named Kate, and we stayed in contact.  One year David and I drove out west and I wanted to go see her so I called her and she was so excited to hear I was coming.   We drove and drove over the mountains to her town and found her house. It was like we had never been apart.  I met her children and her very nice husband. I was so glad she found a good man. Sadly, he has since passed away.  She fed us lunch and homemade pie and we sat and talked in her back yard and she took David and me to see a neighborhood garden that was so beautiful and the fact the people allowed the public to tromp through their garden was very special.  Our visit was way too short. She gave me some flower seeds to plant when I got home.  When we left I felt so sad because I knew it was probably the last time we’d see each other.  We continue to send cards to one another and when I was sick this past November, she was so concerned for me and wrote me a letter saying so which was very touching.  I wrote back reassuring her that I was well.   This is true friendship when the love for a friend never dies no matter how far apart you are.  I have so many stories I could tell about her and my escapades when we were girls.  I’m hoping she will have a happy birthday and know that I am thinking of her.

Our daughter and her family brought me some beautiful flowers for my birthday.

Several different kinds.

A sunflower which makes me think of Summer days when I complain about it being too hot, so I better enjoy this cool weather now.

Little roses. So pretty and dainty.

Are these carnations?  Not sure.

I really wish someone could tell me what these are. My son-in-law didn’t know either and he knows flowers. They are gorgeous.

They also gave me this card.

Why do people think I like chickens? Hmmmmmm?   I just ordered a T-shirt with a chicken in a headscarf  on the front of it, so maybe I do like them a little bit.  I lost another one of my older chickens this week. I went out today and couldn’t find her and David found her under the snow. He thinks she probably died before we had the snow because there was no snow under her.  It’s getting closer to the time I will have to get more chickens. They have them at Rural King and I have been looking at them.

And one of my grandsons wrote me this birthday greeting.

There was a piñata.

A slide for me to go down!

A birthday cake, of course.

Thank you, Tristan. I really enjoyed this card and will save it forever.

I have several friends who are now in their eighties and still going strong.  Our contractor told us he believed his father was going to live to be one hundred.  I’m not so sure I want to live that long, but we can’t chose our time to die, so whenever God calls me home will be my time.   I’m hoping David and I have many healthy, happy birthdays ahead.   Anyway, we are celebrating all week. I don’t plan to do much cooking or baking and a whole lot of eating out and maybe some shopping.  We are going to pick up the new sink for our bathroom which is getting remodeled this Spring.   I’ve always wanted a pedestal sink and since David picked out the sink and cabinet for our upstairs bathroom, I am choosing the sink. Off to Home Depot we will go!  I love remodeling. I think I would have done well on one of those fixer upper shows on HGTV.  I love seeing a room and changing it into something completely different.  Heaven knows, I’ve done it several times in my lifetime. I have done most all the painting in our house. The paint section in the lumber yard store is my favorite place.  I’ve made some bloopers in my time like the Pepto Bismol pink bedroom I painted once. We lived with it for several years, but David never let me forget it.  We’ve papered, stripped paper, painted and painted again all the rooms in this old house of ours. Right now I’m pretty content with all the rooms, but give me time.

We live on a fairly busy road, especially during the week and I have seen many things go by in all the years we have lived there. Because there is a train track right across the road, we see a lot of trains which my grandsons love. Me, not so much although I’ve gotten use to them. We have always lived where we could hear the trains go by.  We lived on a hill in Richmond and down below us was the train track. It’s now a walking trail which I would have loved when we were living there.  The neighbor girls and I went raspberry picking along that track years ago and got the best raspberries.  Raspberries use to grow wild in a place near our house where we live now and David would go and pick a quart or two for a pie.  The gravel pit expanded and they covered up the raspberry plants, so no more raspberries. Boo.  By the way, I got off the subject of the train track. David looked out the window the other day and said, “What is that?”

I was thinking space ship.  It was extra long and the truck driver was having a hard time turning and getting over the railroad track.

Traffic began to back up.

Then he finally got over the track, but he got stuck and I began to worry about a train coming because they go through often.

But in a few minutes a guy from the gravel pit came riding up on this front end loader and lifted that thing right up and over the track.  It’s called a trommel. Our word for today.  A trommel is a rotary cylindrical or conical screen for sorting ore, coal, gravel, etc. I would have never known that, but David watches all these shows on tv where people are digging for gold.  This one will be used at the gravel pit.

That’s all for today. I’m going out to eat for the first time this birthday week. David took the week off so we are eating out every day.  Yay! And we are eating dessert first.

Here’s to best friends, birthdays, trommels and painting fanaticism.  Bye.