109 Days Until Christmas...Telemarketers beware

Christmas and Telemarketers Are Right Around the Corner
I bet you are thinking....this woman could have left that unsaid about Christmas!  But....once the Labor Day weekend has come and gone, I always begin thinking about the holidays, and begin my plans for cookie baking and candy making.....and shopping for those hard to find (snicker snicker)  money gift cards I always buy or those currency gift envelopes I use.....those gifts don't get returned!

Now comes the telemarketer calls and the junk mail and spam emails, trying to get you to buy their products as holiday presents. 

Over the years I've developed a few perfect solutions to end calls from a particular telemarketer.   The first one is to pretend that I'm a police officer....telling them that I have their number on caller id and threaten them with legal action.  The second is to say "Joe's Pizza".... "may I have your order"..... then when they talk, I again say, "excuse me do you wish to order a large or a small pizza?"  The telemarketer always hangs up confused.

A third way is to talk in a faked foreign language.  This really gets them....sometimes they will want to hand you over to a translator....I just keep talking my gibberish.  Another way is to say "honey what color of underpants do you have on" ....this usually gets an immediate hang up. 

 At times I put the phone by the oven and turn on the timer buzzer and let it ring in their ear for several minutes.  One time I interrupted the caller and said...."please speak slowly, I want to write each word down."  If you simply say "Hold on please" and put the phone down and walk away, it does more good than anything....because this really messes with the telemarketers production numbers. 

Most of the time I simply say no thanks and hang up....but when the same phone number continually shows up on my caller id, that's when I start using my above tactics. 

Any way you look at it, telemarketers are a pain in most person's old hind end.  Even though your phone numbers may be on the "Do Not Call List", they still call.  My numbers are on the list but I still get calls.

Back to the subject of Christmas.....let's face it folks.  From last week, our temperatures dropped 30+ degrees.  The feel of the air is coolness now...still no rain in Greenview land, but Springfield got some.  When coolness in the air begins, Fall/Autumn comes in a short time.  This year Fall/Autumn begins September 23....which is just 18 days counting today as well as the 23rd.  Then winter begins on December 22.....right before the big day.....Christmas.

Glad I could be the one to remind you of the coming season changes and big holiday.  Mark your calendars to begin planning....it's coming!

Old Tyme Greenview
Taken from the Greenview Scrapbook.

• 1919 - In the early part of August the a post of the American Legion was organized.  Lawrence Rayburn was the first casualty on the battlefield thus the post was named after him.   Homer J. Tice erected a Memorial Arch in the park in honor of the veterans.   The hardroad was laid through Greenview.  Elton Ennis was appointed the Standard Oil Agent.  Dr. Willis Beard located to Greenview after graduating from Chicago Veterinary School in 1918 and then in World War I until December 1919.
• 1920 - B. F. Marbold disposed of his business interest in the telephone company to the Illinois Central Telephone Co.
• 1921 - The American Legion Auxiliary was organized.  A skating rink was opened in the Opera House.  Paul Downey operated the Lone Star Cafe (later became the Corner Cafe).  A. L. Barnett purchased the egg and cream station from Jack Barnett, his son (note from Carla....this is the answer to the blog poll question about a egg hatchery).
• 1922 - Charles and Rosie Watkins opened a restaurant (where the locker plant was in later years).  The Greenview Woman's Club was organized in December with 20 members.
• 1923 - Elton Ennis joined his father in the furniture and funeral business..  Clyde Riley established a concrete block business.
• 1924 - Al Barnett was operating a hotel in the Woodruff building.  Beggs and Hatch elevator was owned and operated by Clyde Hatch.

Beggs Elevator taken in 1915.

•  1925 - G.W. Hatch sunk a coal shaft 1.5 miles south of Greenview, called the Greenview Mining Co.  Stockholders were Mr. Hatch, Forrest Hatch and Karl Brunsman. 
•  1926 - William Schoeneweiss started working in the insurance business.  A portable gymnasium was purchased for basketball playing.  Before this basketball was played in the Opera House.  Soon after the gym was bought the home economics building was bought.
• 1927 - The Marbold Bank closed on March 8.  It was re-organized and reopened May 18, 1929 as Greenview State Bank.  John West of Petersburg opened a grocery store, the seventh in his chain of stores....first manager was George Reed, then later Cynthia Rodemer then Earl McCammon and then in 1933 Marshall Spaulding.
• 1928 - Margaret Meehan was appointed school custodian with her son Vincent (Bimmie) as her assistant.  Herschel (Herk) West was the first ham radio operator.  Herk and several fellows had an orchestra and played for dances....the orchestra members were:  Paul Kincaid, Claude Beauchamp, Clark Altig, Earl Ramsey, Shad Godbey, Freddie Barnett, Jim Kincaid, Bob Howell, Roy Kincaid, Oscar Schoeneweiss.
• 1920  The Greenview State Bank and the First State Bank consolidated.  Earle Ramsey opened a barber shop.
• 1931 - March 23, four gunmen pulled off a daylight bank robbery at the Greenview State Bank.  The robbers were eventually caught but released.  One of them was shot at an attempted robbery at Sherman.  The Greenview Milling and Grain Co, was organized under the management of Clyde McClintick.

Recipe Time
Since fall is in the air, I'm giving you one of my family's most prized recipes.....Pumpkin Cookies.  This recipe has been in our family for many years, and my children beg me to make these cookies....all through the year, and not just for the fall and Thanksgiving season.  Hope you enjoy this recipe.
Pumpkin Cookies
1 # 2.5 can Libby's Pumpkin (3.5 cups)
3 cups sugar
1 cup margarine
3 tsp baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
dash of ginger
4 cups of flour
Black Walnuts

Combine the pumpkin, sugar, softened margarine and baking soda.  Then add the spices and last of all the flour.  Dredge the nuts in 2 tablespoons of flour and put nuts/with flour into the mixture.  Put tablespoonful on a lightly sprayed/greased cookie sheet. Bake 350 degrees F. for 13 - 15 minutes.  Store these in a container with a tight lid with layers of waxed paper in between layers or the cookies will stick as they get more moist after baking. Ok to freeze these if layers are separated with waxed paper.  Makes lots.

What's To Eat At Our House Tonight
Since it's cooler, I will start to use the oven more.  Tonight is sirloin pork chops browned with mushroom soup over the top and baked in a slow oven (325) for about 1.5 hours.  Mashed potatoes and the last of the corn on the cob with Mississippi mud brownies for dessert.  Yum!

Thought For The Day

We must take our friends as they are.

--James Boswell

Are there some people who just grate on you....and you want to call them every horrible name you can think of.  Lately, I've run across a couple of persons that I wanted to hang by their fingernails upside down with their feet tied around their neck.  But, being the nice calm collected person that I normally am, I didn't do that described measure.....I simply called them a bunch of names....under my breath of course.

That got me started thinking about compiling a list of wisecrack names to call persons who just get on my nerves....or just plainly irk me.  If I feel that way about certain persons, surely some of my readers would most likely have those bad persons in their lives too, and, maybe would benefit from my own personal list of wisecrack names to use ..... beware some might be a bit or maybe even downright ornery....but one has to do what they have to do....and use the correct language for the particular person getting the treatment!!!

Here's an example of my list:

Hammy Hippo

Tar Breath

Terd Muffin

Smudgehead

Fairy Floss

Boobaluba

Dingus

Goober

Poopiehead

Boodlebutt

Nitwit

Schnozwhistle

Pip-squeak

Motty Potty

Dingleberry

McButt

Noodlehead

Besides these prized one word slams, I also have some cool one liners to use for persons who deserve my quality names or one-liners.

Here are my one liners:

• Couldn't find His/her butt with both hands if it had a bell on it.
• He's/she's all foam no beer.
• If brains were taxed, he'd/she'd get a refund.
• Eating with only one chopstick.
• Not playing with a full deck.
• Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
• His/her elevator doesn't go quite to the top floor.
• Has verbal diarrhea and mental constipation.
• Tape your mouth shut before the rest of your intelligence escapes.
• Has bats in the belfry.
• Nutty as a fruitcake.
• They're the white part of chicken poop...it's chicken poop too.
• A few beers short of a six pack.
• Gotta brain transplant and the brain rejected you.
• Your conversation is like the ocean waves..it makes me sick.
• Is your name Maple Syrup?  It should be you sap.

Now I've got to admit, some of these things aren't nice to say to anyone and could really hurt their feelings....so that's why I wait until I'm out of sight and out of hearing before I let go with my tirade of insulting words.  Sometimes it helps to let off steam....especially when a person messes with you and they deserve every nasty word in the book.  Amen.

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