L is for Lineman

 I went to the well, and the well was dry when I was trying to come up with an L post. L should be an easy letter to write about since it is one of the most common letters in the English language. And you can guess what I did after I wrote that last sentence. I checked the statistics on how common L is. It turns out that it is 11th out of the 26 letters, in the top half, but not as common as I thought.

Anyway, after going down several dead-end L paths, I decided to rerun a post from seven years ago that is near and dear to my heart. 

My father was a lineman for the electric company.  He spent his entire career climbing poles and working with high voltage wire, and it was a job that suited him well. He loved being outdoors and doing physical work. In fact, when he was offered managerial positions, he declined because he didn't want to be inside all day. His mother should have known that this might be the career he would choose when she saw him as a boy jumping from tree to tree playing tree tag.

However, parts of the job were difficult, and that's what I remember most. Daddy had to go out anytime day or night in the worst weather because that was when there was usually a power outage. Severe thunderstorms with lots of rain. My father was out. Ice storms. My father was out. Deep snow. My father was out. Sometimes for days. One time he worked 54 hours straight without a break. Luckily since then, there has been a rule that you can't work that long at any one time. But linemen still work very long hours in very difficult situations.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves--people complaining about how long it takes to get their electricity back on after a storm. When it takes more than a few hours, the complaining starts. News reporters get man-on-the-street comments about how bad the electric company is and how things should be fixed by now. No one seems to think about what might be involved to get the electricity working again. It takes a lot of hard physical work, usually done in severe weather conditions.

Enough lecturing. But you know, we all have buttons that can be pushed, and you just learned one of mine.

The picture is of an amazing cross-stitch done by Aunt Martha. The man on the pole looks much like my father did, including the blue jeans and work shirt he is wearing.

K is for Kookaburra

or a Kind Act

Sarah is a special needs buddy that I spend time with on Sundays when I help her maneuver through church activities. She is one of the most loving people I know, along with a keen appreciation for nature. I always enjoy my time with her. Here is one of the mornings we spent together.

The air had a chill as Sarah and I did our regular walk from one building to the other on a short path through the woods. Sarah enjoys these walks because she loves everything to do with nature. We always stop and examine a leaf, bug, or bird along the way. Actually, we examined many leaves and bugs- some of which we collected. More often than not, our pockets are full of her treasures. This morning as we were walking along, Sarah said she saw a skunk. I told her I wasn't sure it was a skunk and suggested that maybe it was a cat. I then told her about a black and white cat I used to have named Samantha.

I shared stories about how Samantha would stand up on her hind legs and hold her paws like she was praying. I also told her how Samantha would drag clothes into a pile and how she made a pile of my mother's underwear by the front door one time. Sarah was amused by these stories and asked how old Samantha was. I told her that Samantha lived a long time ago and she had died.

We finished our walk to the other building and sat down to examine our treasures. However, Sarah had other things on her mind. She was obviously still thinking about Samantha because she told me that it was okay to be sad sometimes and gave me a big hug. She said that she had my back and she loved me. But to top it all off, she dug through the bag of stuffed animals she had with her and picked out one specific one for me. It was a very well-loved Beanie Baby bird that she told me was a kookaburra. I was afraid that Sarah would miss this bird when she got home, so I suggested that she could keep it for me and she could bring it back every time we met. You see, even though Sarah has dozens and dozens of stuffed animals, she has given each one a name and personality. So she would definitely know if one were missing. But she insisted that I keep it, so I did.

After our very tender moments of Sarah consoling me about the loss of Samantha, we started to sing Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum tree laughing as we sang. A perfect ending to another special morning with Sarah.

J is for June

or How I Spent an Afternoon Jumping around on the Internet Trying to Get something for a J Post. 

You may know that my blog alias is June, after June Cleaver from the TV show, Leave It to Beaver. In fact, my blog family all have aliases from the Cleaver family. Ward is my husband, and my two sons are Wally and Theodore (Theo, for short), Beavers's real name. However, I've used their alternate names so much that I sometimes call them that in real life. 

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to see if I could find any real-life June Cleavers. This idea was spurred by the release of the 1950s census data by the US government on April 1st. However, while the data may have been released, it's not available yet on Heritage Quest or Ancestry, where it will be easily searchable. But I did find data for 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses. As it turns out, there weren't that many June Cleaver's out there; in fact, not more than a couple of handfuls over the years. And none of them lived in Mayfield, where the Cleaver family of TV fame resided. :)

So instead, I used Social Security records to look at popular baby names through the years to see how popular the name June has been. As it turns out, June never made it into the top 20. The name was in its heyday in the 1930s when it was ranked in the mid-40s in popularity. What I consider old fashion names, such as Hazel and Mabel, are making a resurgence these days, but June has not caught on that way. 

So when June didn't provide much data, I started looking at any names using the Social Security website starting with J. And do you know what I figured out? There are many more popular boy names that start with J than there are girl names. In the top 20, James and John have been popular for decades, along with Joseph, Jeffery, Jon, Jack, Jay, Jim, Jimmy, Joe, Jason, Joshua, Jonathan, Jason, Justin, Jacob, and Jackson.

When I examined the same time, 1950-2020, I found fewer girl names starting with J in the top 20. In fact, none showed up until 1970, when Jennifer was on the list along with Jessica, and those remained popular for the next 30 years. However, in the 21st century, no J female names have been in the top 20. 

BTW, when I checked out the popularity of my real name, it was less popular than June, never making it into the top 100 and sometimes not even making it into the top 1000. 

Do you have a popular name? What do you think about it?

I is for Ice Cream

A conversation with a young Wally.

"Wally, I see you were eating ice cream again without asking first. This has been happening too much lately. I am worried about your lack of willpower."

"Mama, my willpower is usually very good. Except when I get caught."

I'll have to admit that my willpower is not that good either when it comes to ice cream-especially vanilla topped with hot fudge. Yum.

Do you find ice cream or another treat hard to resist?

H is for House Numbers

I'm not sure we even noticed when we bought our house, but it didn't have house numbers. We were more focused on things like how old the furnace was and if there was a place for Ward's workshop. However, after we moved in, we did notice that the numbers on the mailbox were very faded and replaced them. We didn't think much more about our lack of numbers until someone was confused about which house was ours. While we had numbers on the mailbox, it was across the street from the house which caused doubts for some. After that, we'd talk about where the numbers should go and what we wanted them to look like until we'd get distracted by something else. Recently, the topic came up again when a workman knocked on the neighbor's door looking for our house. 

So we started to make a concerted effort to look at numbers on houses wherever we were noting size, style, and placement. We noticed an interesting thing while we were looking around-over half of the houses in our neighborhood didn't have house numbers. A few of those had a mailbox in their front yard with numbers, but the rest did not. I have never lived in a neighborhood where all of the houses didn't have numbers and I didn't know what to make of it. Still don't.

However, we have joined the neighborhood minority and have house numbers. Ward put together a plaque with large numbers that are easy to see from the street. And it only took us five years to make it happen. :)

Do all of the houses in your neighborhood have numbers?