The World of Grandpa Don  

Monday was an "Outov Day" I was out of milk, orange juice, breakfast meals, Jell-O ... I have become addicted to Jell-O! And so, reluctantly I went to the store. I checked my coupons before I went but one slipped by and I tried to use it ... dated to expire on 4/17. The months go by too fast. The checker handed it to me explaining that the coupon had expired. I replied, ... "Better the coupon than me." That brought agreement and smiles.

There was an email from the Pastor of the local Faith Christian Reform Church, a "feedback" from the St Julie web site. He very politely noted that on one of our pages he found the word "witch" when it was obvious it should have been "which". He also complemented us on our web site. The error was immediately corrected and I replied to thank him for helping us and letting him know that the witch had been removed from our web site. It had probably been there for a year or more but no one conducted a witch hunt and so it was undetected. It was nice of our brother Christian to inform us of the problem. After all there should not be a witch on any Christian web site. Computer programmers have been trying for many years to create artificial intelligence by building machines that can calculate and operate faster but they are still limited by the idiots who operate them. They should start with spell checkers and program them to recognize the context of words in a sentence and alert us to witches where they don't belong.

I think I know why I can't get my weight down. I eat everything! Garbage pickup is on Tuesday and I had so little that it wasn't worth the effort to put it out. The recycle bin however was filled to the top with paper products ... packaging materials and such ... so I know that a lot of food comes in the house but I waste nothing. I eat everything edible! I clean the plate! I never scrape the dishes before putting them into the dish washer. I never need to because there is nothing to scrape. My mother made me do it because if I left anything on my plate a child would starve in China. I never did und understand how that worked but it must have been true. My mother said it. It was reinforced in the Navy ... "Take all you want ... Eat all you take." The sign was posted above the chow line. Of course at home  if you didn't fill your plate, you were insulting mom. "What! ... you don't like my cooking!" Eat everything if you are to grow up big and strong! And ... BIG is healthy. Heaven forbid you would be a scrawny, thin thing. Didn't your parents feed you? It was a bad reflection on your parents if you looked undernourished. And my kids don't help. When they came for my birthday they brought cake and ice cream. I told them to take the leftover cake home but they left a slice in the refrigerator. I had to finish it. Two days later my daughter asked if I found the ice cream in the freezer. I had not but once I knew it was there I had to finish it. To make it worse, a small portion of ice cream doesn't do it for me. If I am to have ice cream, I have ICE CREAM. Besides, it was low fat ice cream so I had to have twice as much. I was raised in a Bohemian home. Most people eat in order to live. For Bohemians, the sole purpose of life is to eat. Eating is the focus of life. The table is the center of existence and this is where family and friends gather. The table is the social center of life and it must be resplendent with good food. Fill your plate ... try it all ... eat it all or offend the cook and if you clean your plate you must still be hungry so take more. You continue eating because it tastes so good, and you do not stop just because you are full. It is your duty to continue to eat just to be sociable if for no other reason. And if you do stop, a child in India starves! And so, I absolve myself. It is not my fault.