Things About Kids

There is only one pretty child in the world and every mother has it.

Chinese Proverb:  Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like clearing
your driveway in the middle of a snowstorm.

Mothers of teens are the only ones that KNOW why animals eat their young.

I asked Mom if I was a gifted child... she said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.
 

Children are natural mimics, who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

A child's greatest period of growth is the month after you've purchased new school clothes.
The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children
out there more awful than your own.
We childproofed our home 3 years ago and they're still getting in!

Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children.

When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time,
but you can never fool a Mom.
I love to give homemade gifts... which one of my kids do you want?

Anyone who says 'Easy as taking candy from a baby' has never tried it.

Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 telling them to sit down and shut-up!

Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy

Have you ever passed the corner of 4th and Grand
Where a little ball of rhythm's has a shoeshine stand
The people gather round and they clap their hands
he's a great big bundle of joy.
He pops a boogie woogie rag
the Chattanooga shoeshine boy.

He charges you a nickel just to shine one shoe
He makes the oldest kind of leather look like new
You feel as though you wanna dance when
he gets through.
He's a great big bundle of joy.
He pops a boogie woogie rag
the Chattanooga shoeshine boy.
It's a wonder that the rag don't tear
the way he makes it pop!
You ought to see him fan the air
with his hoppity hippity hoppity hippity hop!

He opens up for business when the clock strikes nine
He likes to get 'em early when they're feeling fine
Everybody gets a little rise and shine
with a great big bundle of joy
He pops a boogie woogie rag
the Chattanooga shoeshine boy!

The Carrot Clarinet

Click Here to watch the video.

Believe It Or Not

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could  have an order of 6, 9 or 20 Chicken McNuggets.

I asked for a half dozen  nuggets. "We don't have half dozen nuggets", said the teenager at the counter. "You don't?" I replied. "We only have six, nine, or twenty," was the reply. "So I can't order a half-dozen nuggets, but I can order six?" "That's right." So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.

I was checking out at the local Foodland with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those dividers that they keep by the cash register and placed it
between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the cashier had scanned all of my items, she picked up the divider, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me "Do you know how much this is?" and I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today". She said "OK" and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened....

A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and  pulling it out very quickly. When inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy".

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you  need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced  the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a  battery to fit this?" "Hmmm, I don't know. Do you have an alarm too?" I asked. "No, just this remote thingy," she answered,  handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I  replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries?  It's a long walk."

Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing  paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier paper,"  the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.

I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle  was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister". I asked the  manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the cruise control and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

The Gentleman

 A man was riding on a crowded bus, standing room only.
 The bus stopped and an elderly lady got on carrying
a large picnic basket. She stood right in front of the
man and grabbed the overhead rail so the picnic basket
  was above the man's head.

Being a gentleman, he offered his seat to her.
She quickly declined as she was only going a short distance.

Soon the picnic basket began to leak.
The man felt something drop on top of his head.
As he looked up it hit beside his nose and ran down
  across his lips. He tasted it, looked up at
the lady and asked, "Pickles?"

She replied, "No, no, puppies....."

Roanoke, Alabama

Downtown Roanoke, Alabama

Roanoke is a city in Randolph County, Alabama, United States.

Roanoke is served by a weekly newspaper, The Randolph Leader.  As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 6,563.

Local:

The city is served by Mayor Mike Fisher since 2009.

Roanoke has three schools served by Roanoke City Schools: Knight Enloe Elementary (K-3), Handley Middle School (4-8), and Handley High School (9-12). On December 1, 2011, The Handley Tigers won the AHSAA Class 3A State Championship.

Notable People:

• Admiral Edward A. Burkhalter - Chief of Naval Intelligence; Director of Intelligence Community, CIA
• Wilkie Clark, African-American entrepreneur and civil rights activist
• Jake Daniel, former Major League Baseball player
• Horace Gillom, former Cleveland Browns player, who contributed to the evolution of punting by standing further back from the center than was normal at the time
• William Anderson Handley, former U.S. Representative
• Fred Hyatt, former Auburn University and professional football wide receiver
• Odell McLeod, American country-gospel singer, radio entertainer, and songwriter
• Stan O'Neal, former chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch
• Clare Purcell, former Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the Methodist Church
• Ella Gaunt Smith, American doll manufacturer

Doll House Lady Entrepreneur:

Ella Gaunt Smith, lady entrepreneur who began to manufacture dolls from her home (called the "doll house") that were widely owned across the USA. The dolls used innovative designs and were indestructible; and included both black and white dolls.

Ella Gaunt Smith (born April 12, 1868 – April 2, 1932 in Roanoke, Alabama) was an innovative American doll manufacturer.

After graduating from LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia, and marrying Samuel Smith, Ella began working as a seamstress. She spent years repairing broken bisque dolls brought in by her neighbors and experimenting with ways to produce sturdier dolls. She eventually turned to doll manufacturing full-time, selling mostly to friends and neighbors. After experiencing early success she exhibited her dolls at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, winning a Grand Prize for Innovation and helping establish a nationwide market for her product. She received a patent for her design in 1905.

From 1899 to 1932 her back-yard factory employed 12 women and produced 8,000-10,000 dolls per year. The dolls, known as Ella Smith dolls or Alabama Babies were also sometimes called "Roanoke Indestructible Dolls" because of their heavy cotton frame and stout plaster of Paris heads. It was often said that a truck could drive over one of these dolls without damaging it. The price at the time for an Ella Smith doll ranged from $1.15 to $12.15 depending on size, clothing and hair. A tenth of her dolls were painted black to resemble African American girls. She was likely the first manufacturer to market dolls based on people of African descent in the Southern United States.

Smith was known for working with a hymn-singing parrot perched on her shoulder. At a time when she was planning to expand her operation, a train wreck caused the disastrous loss of many orders. At the same time a lawsuit arising from a bad business deal cost her a large settlement. Mrs. Smith, who suffered from diabetes and kidney disease, died in 1932.

Ella Smith dolls, especially the black-skinned dolls, are highly collectible. A Randolph County Historical Museum, to be located in the 1940 Post Office building in Roanoke will tell the story of the Ella Smith Doll through documents and artifacts.

External Links:

• Museum of East Alabama Roanoke Doll Collection
• Article in Auburn Expressions
• American pioneers of doll design
•  Library of Congress page on Roanoke