My men folk made it back safely on Friday. The boys had spent a week with their grandparents and hubby had gone to a seminar in Michigan. He stopped back in WV to pick up the boys and visit a while with his parents. We met at Cracker Barrel for dinner and then the boys rode home with me. They had me in stitches and never knew it. #1 was telling me about a lesson they had had in class at church about horrible truths. I asked for an example and he said smoking. The horrible truth is that it makes your breath stink and your teeth look bad. Once that happens, he continued, you can't find a good wife, so you settle for a bad tempered woman. She refuses to go to church with you and when you have children then they are bad tempered like their mother. The kids won't go to church either and then their kids won't, and before you know it all of those generations of people are bad tempered and don't go to church and it's all your fault. "Wow," remarked #2, "all of that from 1 cigarette?" "Well, something like that." Then they started playing with the whoopie cushion #2 bought at Cracker Barrel. #2, sitting behind #1, would make a fart noise and #1 would guess how he made it--whoopie cushion, mouth, arm pit-- then #1 says you didn't do anything. #2 laughs and says yes he did, "Silent, but deadly." Thank goodness we were nearly home by then! _____ While they were gone, the really pretty rooster turned mean on me. He would stalk me and attack. I kept Kelly with me when I fed so that she could keep after him. So yesterday we killed the rooster. #2 and I butchered him. It was such a shame; he was a beautiful bird. Then when I went to bed I started reading another of the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder's works. The editor was talking about how life has changed and that people just go to the store now for food. Then, if you wanted fried chicken, you killed the chicken, scalded it, plucked it, butchered it, etc. He spoke of the smell that goes along with that, and said people today have no idea about all of that. Well, not all people! ------- Today is Memorial Day. In my hometown there will be a big parade and school children will place flowers on graves in the National Cemetary. I was able to go to the celebration last year. Thank you, God, for a free country to live in. And thank you to all of the veterans who made it possible.