SIIIIIIX-teeeeen CAAaandllllllllles…

That’s right folks, it seems like only yesterday that our beloved child was but a cranky infant, but she has now, lo these sixteen weeks later, grown into the fine and fetching composition known far and wide as The Axis of Weevil Thursday Three!

What to ask, what to ask?

The questions to date have been marked either by their profound insight, or by their utter lack of seriousness. They have ranged far and wide in subjects equally far. And wide. They occasionally eat from the tree of Southernosity, then after becoming ill, they go try something a bit more bland in an attempt to recuperate. We have covered literature, cooking, family, work, recreation--what is left?!

Being from the South, with its storied romantical traditions, it is quite obvious to me that questions about one particular subject have been sadly lacking--that being LOVE! Or lust. Or whatever. TO RIGHT THIS PERNICIOUS WRONG, and recalling the oft quoted motto, “Amor Vincit Omnia,” today’s Thursday Three will delve into the sometimes sweet, sometimes painful, subject of…




Consistency in the Formulation of the Dirac, Pauli, and Schroedinger Theories!!


Not really--maybe next week. But today will be the Thursday of LOVE!

Remember, even though you might be a bitter, hateful, dried-up old coot without an ounce of feeling, you’re still welcome to play along--either leave a link to your blog in the comments below, or feel free to just leave your answers (remembering that HaloScan doesn’t let you use more than one thousand characters.)

NOW THEN:

1) Who was your first sweetheart? (Names may be changed to protect the innocent, although we do want to know all the other details.)

2) Of the person you love the very most, which of their character traits of do you find most appealing?

3) Of all the inanimate objects in your possession, are there any for which you have--if not love--then at least a powerful affection?

SO, go off and answer and let us know what you can come up with.

As for my answers:

1) Third grade--a little blond girl named Linda, who I thought was just the most cutestest, sweetest girl ever. My only problem was that I had made the mistake of telling someone that I thought she was pretty, and one day while the teacher was out of the room, the whole class started teasing me and asking me if I liked her.

You have to remember at this time I was already quite self-conscious about myself--I was the only kid in a very small school who wore an orthopedic leg brace and a built-up shoe (I had Legg-Perthes disease), and I was the biggest kid in class, and it was known that I liked to read the encyclopedia for fun. Anyway, they all started making fun of me, and kept saying, “D’yah liiiiiiike her?! D’yah liiiiiiike her?! D’yah liiiiiiike her?! D’yah liiiiiiike her?!” and I got so frustrated that I blurted out “Yes!” and they all busted out into squeals of laughter and derision.

They all thought it was a big hoot, but the humiliation of it was just crushing. And it wasn’t one of those things were you move to another grade with new kids the next year--there was just one class of us, and I graduated with most of those kids nine years later. Took me a LONG time to get rid of that feeling, and it’s one of the reasons why I am so sensitive about kids making fun of each other now.

2) Miss Reba is one of the most single-mindedly honest people I know. As is my mama.

3) Hmmm--well, I’ve said before the only things I have that I can truly claim as my very own (without fear of them being taken away by wife or kids) are my underwear and my guns. However, I don't really have that much depth of emotion for them, and in the case of my intimate apparel, I'm not really sure if they would qualify as inanimate.

Of the other things I own, I think the thing that has survived the longest in my affections among the non-living is the mooshed-up teddy bear I had as a child. It originally belonged to my sister, then got passed down to me. Old nappy nubby brown thing with a rubber nose and tiny amber-colored eyes and an odd construction that makes it look like it was born underneath a pile driver. It is one of the few articles of my childhood that has managed to survive being boxed and moved and hauled around and dumped and moved until it wound up at the house we live in now. I unpacked a box full of junk a couple of years ago and found it again--such memories.

Ted E. Bear was one of the very few friends I had as a child--our neighborhood (if a row of houses along the highway can be called a neighborhood) didn’t have any kids my age, and my sister was a lot older than me, and my parents weren’t the social sort, so I spent a lot of time with my toys. He was a very charming bear, and tended to be a very good listener.

Anyway, he surfaced again a while back, and when Reba saw him, she thought he was cute--even if a little smelly--and promptly sat him on the windowsill on her side of the bed. ::sigh:: See what I mean about people claiming my stuff?!

Anyway, there you go.
posted by Terry at 7:52:00 AM