Tag Archives: yarn

Cuff Links

Cuff link: (n) a pair of linked ornamental buttons or buttonlike devices for fastening a shirt cuff.

We called her Sister Betty.

She wasn’t really our sister. It was kind of a quasi-religious reference with just a hint of hippie philosophy.

Sister Betty loved to find deals at thrift stores. She especially became interested in finding me clothes, since my girth made it difficult to buy anything other than men’s work pants and shirts. The grays, browns and indescribable greens of those clothes were not suitable for a teenage boy.

So one day Sister Betty came in with a dress shirt which actually fit me.

It had French cuffs.

I did not know what French cuffs were, but Betty immediately explained that they were folded over, and a fastener held them together—which was often very ornate and contained a jewel.

I was game. After all, I had a new shirt.

For some reason, Sister Betty, who was usually very lucky in the market, was unable to find me discounted cuff links. I think she probably should have pursued a little further, but when her first trip to the bargain plaza did not garner the desired results, she decided to try to make me a pair of cuff links for the new French shirt.

She came up with many ideas.

Simple pieces of leather to hold the French cuff together.

She thought about painting a paper clip.

When she finally got down to ribbon and yarn, I realized it was time for me to intercede. I was already a little intimidated about wearing a French shirt in my All-American small town, but having it garnished by ribbon, yarn or bows was completely implausible.

Finally, one of my friends suggested that maybe Sister Betty could take two marbles—those Purees—and fasten something on them, to use them for the cuff links.

She glued and messed, frowned and struggled for a whole day.

Then she appeared with two cuff links made out of marbles.

I slipped them on the shirt, fastened the cuff links and then crinkled my brow.

One marble was red and the other was blue.

Sister Betty saw my dissatisfied face and said, “Oh! Did you want the marbles to be the same color?”

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Ark

dictionary with letter A

Ark: (n) in the Bible, the ship built by Noah to save his family and two of every kind of animal from the Flood; Noah’s Ark.

He kept repeating the question to me over and over again with additional ferocity and challenge with each inquiry.

“Do you believe that Noah and the Ark is true?”

There’s nothing more annoying than an evangelistic atheist or an ardent fundamentalist. In both cases, they want you to commit to stuff you don’t know anything about.

Since I did not live in the time of Noah, I’m not quite sure what the Ark was. And though the measurements are quite large for a boat, it is not possible for it to contain two of all the animals of the world, even at that time.

So does that negate the story and make it a complete lie?

I am also fully aware that almost every culture in the world has its own Noah and the Ark story in some fashion. And does that give it less validity–if it might have been “Omar and the Big Canoe?”

When it comes to matters of spirituality, I have a very simple rule I apply to all stories, theories, doctrines and even axioms: how does it apply to me?

I know that sounds rather selfish, but I seriously doubt if God wants me to study yarns from the past that have little to do with the woven fabric of my doings.

What do I get out of Noah?

Sometimes what is right is hard to do because it doesn’t make sense to the mob around you, and the only way you’re going to prove that it is right is by finishing what you set out to do … and letting the rain fall.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Anecdote

dictionary with letter A

Anecdote: (n) a short and amusing or interesting tale about a real person or incident.

There are things that are true–yet truth has a responsibility to stay contemporary.

What I mean is that simply because something was true in a certain way a hundred years ago does not mean it can be heard as truth in our present society by pursuing the same method.

For instance, people used to tell stories.

Back before radio, television, Internet and downloads, the bearer of news relied on speech instead of Podcasts.

Folks actually sat around a fire for hours, spinning one yarn after another, giving examples, and in the process, created both understanding and fellowship with one another.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get nostalgic. I’m perfectly satisfied living in a world where the anecdote has been set aside, or only applied as a means of an opening monologue for a Rotary Club speaker.

But in the pursuit of truth, we have to learn how to take the better parts of the past and mingle them with the new awakening. The only danger, of course, is losing the intimacy once possessed between human beings, and ending up with phones that have their own “I”-dentity and think they’re “smarter” than us.

So what should we do?

I think it’s the responsibility of the creative people in every generation to keep the warmth of great ideas and heat them up on the burners of our time.

It’s one of the reasons I write this essay. I can take words, insert my anecdotes on subjects a bit beyond the realm of my true perception, and therefore interact with you blessed people.

So the next time you come across some grandfatherly individual who begins his conversation with, “It reminds me of the time when I was a young man…”–instead of rolling your eyes and quietly texting under the table, find an ingenious way to come up with two questions to ask him about his experience, and see if it doesn’t change a mere story … into an encounter.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Adrenalin

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAdrenalin: (n) a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, esp. in conditions of stress, increasing rates of blood circulation, breathing, and carbohydrate metabolism and preparing muscles for exertion.

I wanted a shot of adrenalin just last night. It’s the body’s cocaine, you know–except no policeman picks you up because you have white powder on the tip of your nose.

The trouble with adrenalin is that it is only available when we find ourselves at our worst. It’s a drug the body secretes when we are stressed, frightened to death, or overly angry about some situation.

Actually, one of the questions I would like to ask God is about adrenalin–because giving adrenalin to someone who is already insanely imbalanced in their judgment is like selling a gun to a person who is deranged and might go out to shoot people in the workplace. (Wait a second. We DO that …)

Truthfully, what I need when I’m trying to find my car keys and about to burst into fury is a shot of Valium. (“Chill out, Pilgrim. We’ll find the keys, and if we don’t we’ll go back in the house and toast up a frozen pizza and watch reruns of The Waltons…”)

The LAST thing in the world I require when I am scared by an unexpected bogey man, is to have my heart rate suddenly go up to 180 beats per minute, stealing my breath and depriving my brain, which needs to accessed for escape plans, of oxygen.

My mother told me that when I was a child that I got bronchitis so severely one night that my heart stopped and I couldn’t breathe. Our local doctor gave me a shot in the heart of some adrenalin. (Now, I don’t know if this was true or not. I love my mother dearly, but she was known to spin a yarn, and I don’t mean to make a sweater…) But if any of it IS true, and I did require that drug to start my breathing again, I am grateful.

But it tells me how potent it is, and how dangerous it can be at the wrong times. I suppose if I were in a car accident and someone I loved was underneath the back wheels and I was suddenly required to lift the car up, adrenalin would be helpful.

But feeling pumped, driven, intoxicated and drugged at a time when I probably should calm down is not helpful.

So as far as adrenalin is concerned, like so many things in nature, I do see the purpose … I’m just not really clear on the application.